History of European Ideas

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The Freethought Movement in Romania until the

Outbreak of the First World War: Developments,
Criticisms and European Influences

Marius Rotar

To cite this article: Marius Rotar (2016) The Freethought Movement in Romania until the
Outbreak of the First World War: Developments, Criticisms and European Influences, History of
European Ideas, 42:4, 554-569, DOI: 10.1080/01916599.2016.1161529

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/01916599.2016.1161529

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HISTORY OF EUROPEAN IDEAS, 2016
VOL. 42, NO. 4, 554–569
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01916599.2016.1161529

The Freethought Movement in Romania until the Outbreak of the

First World War: Developments, Criticisms and European
Influences
Marius Rotar
History Department, 1 Decembrie University, Alba Iulia, Romania

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
Freethought was a transnational movement that developed particularly in Freethought movement;
the second half of the nineteenth century, spreading across Europe and anticlericalism; secularisation;
other world regions and promoting new models for society. The present Eastern Europe; Romanian
article proposes an investigation of the contours and developments of Orthodox Church
the freethought movement in Romania before World War I. This is an
important area of research given that most analyses performed to date
have considered only the Western world and not the Eastern European
context.
Our intention is to elucidate to what extent the European models
influenced this movement and to uncover their impact on the Romanian
society of the time. The paper highlights the criticisms of the clerics
(especially Orthodox) upon freethought, showing that the development
of this current in Romania as a national movement represented not
simply imitation of the European models, but an adaptation of those
models to Romanian realities. The Romanian freethinkers can be seen
trying to develop some of the most radical ideas of those times, in
connection with the European trends.

Contents
1. Introduction
2. The freethought movement
3. European patterns
3.1. Raţiunea journal
3.2. Anti-semitism
3.3. Feminism
3.4. Socialism
3.5. Critics
4. Positivism
5. Conclusions

1. Introduction
Freedom of thought is a philosophical, political and cultural trend which, during the last two cen-
turies, has had powerful influences at different levels of society. Its development during the second
half of the nineteenth century turned it into a movement which sought to liberate individuals from

CONTACT Marius Rotar mrotar2000@yahoo.com

© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN IDEAS 555

various prejudices, such as religious or scientific dogmas. Three major objectives can be identified for
this movement: separation of the church from the state; opposition to the influence of the Christian
Church and religion in society; and the promotion of new models in society (secular ceremonies).1
Another feature of the free thinking movement was its anticlericalism, which became expressed in
ever more radical formulas as time went by.
The movement was from its very beginning a transnational one, due to the substance and nature
of the message it conveyed. The emergence of freethought associations in various parts of Europe,
along with the increase of supporters, led to the organisation of an international congress of free
thought starting in 1880.2 Similarly, the connection between the socialist and freethinkers societies
lent it a strong transnational character, even though, at a local level, free thought also met with con-
siderable opposition. Lisa Dittrich has recently analysed some of these issues, basing her research on
the observation that the transnational dimension of the freethought movement has generally been
neglected, since research on the topic normally adopts a national perspective.3 Reading through Dit-
trich’s studies, we can easily see that her main focus falls on transnational anti-Catholic examples
from countries such as France, Germany and Spain, while leaving out Eastern European states
from the second half of the nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries, where the predominant reli-
gion was neither Catholic nor Protestant. For this reason, the present article will focus on this gap in
the literature, showing how the European ideas and actions of the freethought movement had an
impact on the Romanian freethought movement at that time.
Edward Royle has noted that although there are differences between the various free thinking
movements as they emerged in different parts of Europe at that time, these were due to particular
economic, social and political circumstances rather than to major differences of ideology.4
We should also take into consideration the extent to which the International Federation of Free
Thinking had a development strategy worked out at a universal level, especially since this federation
proclaimed a common global ideal. Recent analysis demonstrates that the federation did not develop
such a strategy at the outset, but that things began to change after its eleventh Congress (1904), Latin
America being one of the areas targeted for propagating the principles of freedom of thought and
developing organised structures in this area of the world.5
Regarding Central Europe, there were a number of specific characteristics dictated by social or
socio-political conditions. We should note that in the Czech Republic, for example, the Young
Czech Party that encouraged free thinking considered the Catholic Church the main supporter of reac-
tionary conditions in Austro-Hungary, sometimes adopting a nationalist discourse.6 Also, the fact that
many Czech immigrants to the United States up to 1914 were freethinkers demonstrates the difference
between Central European countries regarding the impact of freethought issues. The Hungarian
association of free thinkers emerged much later than that in Western Europe, but was extremely active
and influential. As far as Romania is concerned, the particularity lies in the fact that here the Orthodox
confession was in the majority, and the discourse was adapted accordingly. Thus, the ideological trans-
fer of freethinkers in Romania was a process of adaptation of principles.
As a general rule, it can be observed that the ideas of the freethought movement were
implemented in Romania based on European patterns. Beyond the influences of philosophical

1
Helmut Reinalter, ‘Freethinkers’, in Encyclopedia of Christianity, ed. Erwin Falhbusch, vol. 2, E–I, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans: Leiden,
Brill, 2001), 354.
2
Jacqueline Lalouette, ‘Les questions internationales dans les congrès de la Fédération universelle de la Libre Pensée (1880–1913)’,
Cahiers Jaurès 212–3, (2014): 119–33.
3
Lisa Dittrich, ‘European Connections, Obstacles, and the Search for a New Concept of Religion: The Freethought Movement as an
Example of Transnational Anti-Catholicism in the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century’, Journal of Religious History 39, no. 2,
(2015): 261–79.
4
Edward Royle, Victorian Infidels: the Origins of the British Secularist Movement, 1791–1861 (Manchester, Manchester University Press
1974), 170.
5
Devrig Molles, ‘L’Eldorado de la libre-pensée? L’Amérique latine comme objectif stratégique de la Fédération Internationale de la
Libre Pensée (1880–1914)’, Revista de Estudios Históricos de la Masonería Latinoamericana y Caribeña, 7, no. 2 (2015): 17–37.
6
Lubomir Novy, Jiri Gabriel, and Jaroslav Hroch, eds., Czech Philosophy in the XXth Century, (Bucharest, Paideia Press, 1993), 170.
556 M. ROTAR

and political thought as it had developed prior to the eighteenth century, Darwinism and socialism
had a major impact, acting in effect as a preamble to the freethought movement itself.
In Romania, the first concrete formulations of the ideas of free thought can be found in the second
half of the nineteenth century, but they did not take on an organised form until the first decade of the
twentieth century. From this point of view, there is an obvious discrepancy between what happened
in Romania in this area and what was happening in the western world.7
Despite this, the Romanian press of the period laid great emphasis on the emergence and devel-
opment of the freethought movement, either emphasising its novelty and importance,8 or criticising
it. For example, the debates around the British parliamentarian Charles Bradlaugh concerning the
issue of a secular oath had prominent echoes in the Romanian press. Sometimes comparisons
were used, as for example in the case of an article published in 1882 which raised questions about
the use of religious oaths in France and England.9 Only later did Romanian authors come to take
particular standpoints on the actual applications of the religious oath in Romania (for example,
the issue of recruitment and being ‘sworn in’, discussed by Serban Nasturel in Raţiunea magazine
in 1912).10
Although in the late nineteenth century some Romanian politicians adopted an anticlerical atti-
tude in their writings and asserted themselves as free thinkers, there was no intention to organise
themselves into a society. The cases of Prime Minister Titu Maiorescu11 and Senator Gheorghe
Panu are both relevant here. Panu has been considered the first real promoter of atheism in Roma-
nia,12 his writings being scathing about Christianity and the Romanian Orthodox Church. However,
he later confessed in his memoirs that even though at the beginning he had considered himself a free
thinker with an atheist perspective, he had come to deny these ideas later in life and to proclaim him-
self a proponent of scientific positivism under the influence of Auguste Comte’s ideas: ‘I have under-
stood that free thought means nothing, as you can be a free thinker without being a scientist and
without having to subordinate your reasoning to the scientific method’.13
The critique of free thinking in Romania before 1909 was made under the influence of the reli-
gious environment (Orthodox and Greek-Catholic denominations14). In 1885, Chiriţă Roşescu
viewed the Romanian socialist ideology as an expression of free thought meant to destroy the Roma-
nian Orthodox Church and, by default, the Romanian nation.15 The whole premise of free thought,
and of the freethought movement being formed in Romania under the influence of the Romanian
Orthodox Church, was founded on a flawed critique, using the formula of the symbiosis between
the church and the Romanian nation. This was a paradox, however, given the fact that the process
of building the modern Romanian state was achieved by methods of secularisation (see, for example,
the actions of ruler Alexandru I. Cuza of the Romanian Principalities). Hence, the innovative ideas of
the time were considered in Orthodox rhetoric to be an unfortunate insertion into Romanian society,
foreshadowing apocalyptic scenarios that would affect the very fibre of the Romanian nation.
Initially formulated in the second half of the nineteenth century, such perceptions increased widely
during the interwar period.

7
Edward Royle; Radicals, Secularists and Republicans: Popular Freethought in Britain, 1866–1915 (Manchester, Manchester University
Press, 1980); Jacqueline Lalouette, La libre pensée en France, 1848–1940, (Paris, Albin Marcel histoire, 1997); Susan Jacoby, Free-
thinkers: A History of American Secularism (New York, Metropolitan Books, 2004).
8
‘Congresul liber cugetătorilor’, Adevărul, 24 August 1906, 2.
9
‘Jurământul în Anglia şi Franţa’, România Liberă, 27 March 1882, 2.
10
Şerban Năsturel, ‘Poate fi silit un liber cugetător să depună jurământul la înrolarea sa în armată’, Raţiunea, October–November
(1912): 45–8.
11
Titu Maiorescu, ‘Parlamentul şi Sfântul Sinod. Răspuns la interpelarea d-lui G. Brătianu’, in Titu Maiorescu, Discursuri parlamentare
cu priviri asupra desvoltării politice a României sub domnia lui Carol I, vol. 1 (1866–1876) (Bucharest, Socec, 1897), 386, 390.
12
S. Ghiţă, ‘Apariţia şi dezvoltarea gândirii ateiste în România’, in Antologia Ateismului în România, S.Ghiţă, ed. (Bucharest, Științifică,
1962), 28–32.
13
G. Panu, Amintiri de la Junimea din Iaşi, vol. 2 (Bucharest, Remus Cioflec, 1910), 333–4.
14
‘Religiunile “liberu cugetătoriloru”’, Unirea, October 1892, 302, 310, 318, 326, 334, 342; ‘Dorul de libertate şi independenţă’, Biser-
ica şi şcoala, 26 December 1897, 1–3.
15
Chiriţă Roşescu, Biserica, monumentul cel mare al Românilor şi socialiştii liber cugetători (Craiova, Frați Benvenisti, 1885).
 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN IDEAS 557

2. The freethought movement

The first attempt to organise the advocates of the freethought movement in Romania occurred in
1885 in Bucharest, as a reaction to the establishment of an Orthodox association in Iasi by a number
of clerics. The purpose of this latter association was to express the viewpoint of the Romanian Ortho-
dox Church regarding a series of new ideas which were arising under Western influence (for
example, Darwinism). An attempt by Alexandru G. Radovici16 to organise a freethought movement
emerged as a call published in the socialist newspaper Drepturile Omului. Radovici was a lawyer who
had studied law in Paris and then become a member of PSDMR (established in 1893, the first mod-
ern socialist political party in Romania), progressing to the Liberal Party by becoming a deputy, sena-
tor and, later, minister. The essential feature of this initiative was that Radovici supported the
establishment of the association by stating that it was crucial for the development of free thought
in Europe, noting that such associations or federations had previously been established in almost
all countries on the continent. He set out the need for the emancipation of the proletariat in Roma-
nia, considering the priesthood to be comrades of the oppressors, who were taking advantage of the
ignorance of the people in order to lure them into submission.
The organisation of the freethought movement in Romania is linked inextricably with the names
of several members of the Romanian elite from the early twentieth century. It is very relevant for our
topic to mention that the most representative members were familiar with related developments in
Europe, since they had completed their studies at prestigious universities on the continent. Here are
three examples which illustrate this:

(1) Constantin Thiron (1853–1924) had a Ph.D. in medicine (Paris, 1880), and was a specialist in
pathology and therapeutics and a professor at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Iasi
between 1889 and 1923. He studied in France and was, aside from his connection to the free-
thought movement, a social militant, campaigning against alcohol in various publications and
through his participation in a series of conferences.17
(2) Nicolae Leon (1862–1931) was a doctor of biology at the University of Jena, later becoming a
professor at the Faculty of Medicine in Iasi. He was the founder of the first laboratory and
first class of parasitology in Romania. He engaged in a long-running dispute with Nicolae Pau-
lescu (a professor at the University of Medicine in Bucharest) regarding the notion of the soul
and the theory of spontaneous generation. As he confessed in his memoirs, Leon had a mentor,
Ernst Haeckel, an advocate of monism. Likewise, Leon considered himself a free thinker, vehe-
mently rejecting atheism. According to him, atheism was an intolerant and aggressive move-
ment that strangled free thought, being impossible to be implemented amongst common
people.18
(3) Panait Zosin (1873–1942) was a doctor of medicine who studied psychiatry in Paris, and later
became a professor at the University of Iasi. Initially, Zosin considered himself a supporter of
free thought, but ended up seeing himself as a representative of positivism, while also promoting
socialist ideas. However, as I will later emphasise, Zosin did not see any conflict between these
ideas, both of which were designed to empower individuals, nations and humanity.

Of all these three, Thiron was the most important. He was the author of a number of works dedi-
cated to the topic, guided in his researches by the monistic ideology as well as by his admiration of
Haeckel. On 1 August 1909, at his home in Iasi, he founded the National Association of Free Thin-
kers, which was a first for that period in Romania.19 His works include The Conflict between Science
16
Al. G. Radovici, ‘Asociatiunea Liber Cugetatoare’, in Antologia, 290–1.
17
Constantin Thiron, ‘L’alcoolisme comme une des causes prédisposantes à la tuberculose’ (paper presented at the IV-ème Congrès
contre l’abus des boissons alcooliques, Jassy, 1899).
18
A.A. Luca, ‘N. Leon’, in Note si amintiri, N. Leon (Bucharest, Cartea Românească, 1933), 334.
19
‘Vederea monumentului funerar al d-lui profesor dr. C. Thiron’, Gazeta Ilustrata, 22 March 1914, 6.
558 M. ROTAR

and Religion (title translated from the Romanian) in 1909, occasioned by a memorandum submitted
to the Professorial Council of Iasi University regarding the organisation of an Orthodox service at the
opening of the academic year.20 In this article Thiron protests that the service be suppressed, as there
was no rule mandating such things in the Moldovan University’s regulations—it being a non-
denominational academic institution.
In his proposal, Thiron referred to various European examples, considering them to be relevant
models in this case. Hence, he emphasised that neither in France during periods of increased influ-
ence of Catholicism, nor in England—the ‘legendary country of traditional habits’—had such a cer-
emony taken place. Thiron proposed the secularisation of education, after the French model, and
called for the translation into Romanian of as many French public school textbooks as possible.
Thiron cherished an obvious sympathy for France, the country where he had studied, considering
it a possible source of inspiration for Romania. Thus, when he started to advocate openly for the
implementation of the principles of free thinking, he made numerous references to the French
case, expressing, for example, his admiration for the separation of church and state that had been
implemented in 1905. In the conclusion to his statement of 1909, arguing against the Orthodox ser-
vice for the start of the academic year in Iasi, Thiron expressed his admiration for the French pattern.
He considered that mankind of that era had become more emancipated through the actions of the
French encyclopaedists, the French Revolution and the major contributions of the French savants of
the nineteenth century. Consequently, he asserted that in 1905, France had come to ‘the highest pro-
gress of any country’, achieved by separation of church and state and the complete secularisation of
public education.21
On behalf of the National Association of Free thinkers, in a memorandum presented at the mon-
istic congress in Hamburg (1911),22 Thiron proposed the suppression of certain passages from the
1866 Constitution regarding the official religion of the state, the replacement of the religious oath
with the ‘honor and conscience’ oath, revision of electoral law, the ‘separation of church and state’,
the abolishment of faculties of theology and other forms of religious education supported by the
state, the cessation of a budget allocated to the House of the Church, and the cremation of corpses.
Thiron also stressed that during 1909–1910 about eight million lei had gone from the state budget
to the House of the Church, in addition to the various donations of believers given to the church and
priests: ‘under the false pretence that children and peasants would become immoral and criminals,
were it not for the church and the religion’.23 As a consequence, the professor from Iasi asserted the
necessity of ‘the emancipation of the Romanian people from the yoke of the church, freeing their
minds and thereby saving their money for other useful needs’.24 Hence, Thiron said, ‘it is a colossal
waste and a true crime that public money is used for building churches instead of schools and other
modern institutions’.25 Thiron also campaigned for the abolition of religious education in public
schools.
Thiron showed that while the public instruction budget amounted to 20 million francs, the budget
for cults was 9.3 million francs, money used for the benefit of the church rather than the nation and
its people. Thiron concluded that
when the Romanian peasant sees and uses these social improvements [resulting from not allocating money to
the budget of the cults], he will understand that he can achieve happiness, not through attachment to any reli-
gion or church, but through a moral feeling – meaning honest conduct without any obligation, sanction, or
reward – only by the satisfaction of having completed his duty as a human being and citizen useful to his society
and country.26

20
C. Thiron, Conflictul dintre Stiinta si Religie (Iasi, Dacia P. & D. Iliescu, 1909).
21
Thiron, Conflictul, 17.
22
C. Thiron, La Libre Pensee et L’Eglise en Roumanie (Iasi, Edit. autorului, 1911).
23
Thiron, Conflictul, 10.
24
Thiron, Conflictul, 10.
25
Thiron, Libre Pensee, 4.
26
Thiron, Conflictul, 10.
 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN IDEAS 559

It is worthy of comment that Thiron did not contest the past utility of the Orthodox Church, but
rather believed that this was insignificant compared to the benefits it had enjoyed. On the other
hand, of all the members of the freethought movement in Romania, Thiron was the most vehement
critic of religion. Famously, he drew a comparison between innkeepers and Orthodox priests, con-
sidering both of them to belong to a deplorable species: making a living, in his opinion, by exploiting
the people through vices such as alcoholism (for the innkeeper) or ignorance (for the priest).
In the case of Thiron it is particularly notable that when the execution of Ferrer took place in
1909, he returned a decoration to the Spanish State, saying: ‘I cannot bear the insignia of a country
that drowns freedom of thought in blood’.27
Thiron was harshly criticised for his ideas by the Romanian religious class. The best-known
replies to Thiron are the articles published by the archimandrite Iuliu Scriban, who levelled criticism
against the entire freethought movement.28 Thiron had also quickly come in for criticism in other
places, such as in an article published in a theological magazine from Sibiu in 1911. He was accused
of inventing atheists where there were none—exemplified by the cases of Laplace.29 Thiron’s ideas
regarding the secularisation of education and the elimination of religion were also harshly
denounced. In an article published in Luminatorul magazine,30 the deacon Gh. Sarcedoteanu contra-
dicted Thiron, saying that secular schooling was able to offer explanations regarding external truths,
but not internal ones—the latter being connected to the moral life and conscience of man, wherein
only the truth offered by God could penetrate.
Panait Zosin published one book on freethought31 and one on the history of the freethought
movement in Romania,32 the latter also being published in Belgium. Comparing the dissemination
of ideas in the Romanian space with those of the Western one, Zosin remarked upon the fact that in
Romania in the early twentieth century there were many false ‘progressivists’—these were people
who had joined the freethought movement for superficial reasons; they did not risk anything, yet
were seeking an immediate reward while making publicity for themselves. The ‘false progressists’,
as Zosin puts it, were unable to distinguish clearly between facts and mere ideas, and were liable
to change their opinions very quickly, according to their own interests. In this era, Zosin concluded,
freedom of thought in Romania had to be considered from three separate analytical viewpoints: in
relation to nationality, science and morality.33
In the first case, Zosin fought against the concept of an implicit link between nationality and reli-
gion for several reasons: the idea of religious identity appeared long before the idea of national iden-
tity, having by definition a universal character; Orthodoxy as a confession was not a feature specific
only to Romanians, and the idea of being a good Romanian did not necessarily mean that a person
belonged to the Orthodox confession (an exception to this rule being the Jews). Secondly, Zosin con-
sidered that all of the benefits of the modern world were due to science, which had given birth to a
new concept of life and of international reciprocity. With regard to morality, he believed that the
benefits brought by Christianity to this domain were undeniable but that morality and religion as
concepts did not necessarily overlap.
In his view, morality, on one hand, had appeared before religion, as proven by the relationships of
co-existence inherent in early humans. On the other hand, however, the link between religion and
morality had been eroded over time, as religion had incorporated morality only for the purpose of
strengthening its position in society. In addition to this, Zosin had shown that philosophy needed to
be taken as a model, as it offered only ‘relative solutions’ to various issues, forming the basis of

27
‘Dr. C. Thiron’, Opinia, 9 August 1924, 3.
28
Iuliu Scriban, Libera Cugetare sau cugetarea libera, raspuns d-lui dr. Constantin Thiron (Bucharest, Tipografia Cărților Bisericești,
1910).
29
N. Balan, ‘Armonia din religiune si stiinta. Ateisti inventati de dr. C. Thiron’, Revista Teologica, 15 May 1911, 161–71.
30
Gh. M. Sacedoteanu, ‘Scoala Liber Cugetatorilor’, Luminatorul. Foaie Bisericeasca, October 1910, 7–9.
31
Panait Zosin, Libertatea de Cugetare (Bucharest, Biblioteca de Propagandă, 1911).
32
Panait Zosin, ‘Ochire asupra liberei cugetări în România’, Raţiunea, 14–15 (November–December 1918): 26–8.
33
Zosin, Libertatea de Cugetare, 3.
560 M. ROTAR

modern science, while religion led to ‘absolute solutions’ which, in time, blocked human rationality
and action.
According to Zosin, the Romanian freethought movement of that time was an intellectual eman-
cipation movement, born as a response to the attempts of the representatives of the Romanian
Orthodox Church to impose themselves in politics, and especially in education.34 Zosin argued
that when the priests had turned themselves into theologians by establishing the Faculty of Theology,
they had become ‘infinitely demanding and annoying’ in their desire for more wealth. And alongside
this, the fact that the Ministry of Public Instruction had granted priests the right to teach religion in
schools had made them appear indispensable to the nation.
The categorisation of the freethinking movement as one of intellectual emancipation was Zosin’s
most oft-used formula. In an article published in the magazine Raţiunea in 1912,35 he emphasised
the fact that the socialist movement on one hand and the feminist movement on the other both pur-
sued economic and social emancipation, considering that intellectual emancipation would automati-
cally follow. Zosin criticised this pursuit of emancipation, which he saw as rooted mainly in the West
and as having been carried over to Romania through the process of imitation. He concluded that a
unilateral course of action was a mistake, because each of these three movements had to be a support
for the others. If this course of action was not taken, in Zosin’s view, the economic emancipation
movement would slip into utopianism, while the intellectual emancipation movement would des-
cend into mysticism.
According to Nicolae Leon, the main enemy of free thought was superstition, originating in man’s
inability to explain natural phenomena.36 Leon made a clear distinction between error and supersti-
tion, exemplified by cases of malaria, evil eye and epilepsy. In his opinion, each person is born with a
predisposition towards mysticism (through heredity) and rationalism (through the possibility of
education). The example he gives is that of a family in which the father is a rationalist and the mother
a traditionalist: the effect of such a situation on children would be disorienting. According to Leon,
‘superstitions darkened the serenity of the soul’ and he harshly criticised witchcraft, spiritualism and
the cult of relics in Romania. From Leon’s point of view, official science had always been an enemy of
free thought because it was frequently aligned with different forms of power (in the case of Giordano
Bruno). Thus, the
heroism of these martyrs [in the name of science] is much braver than those of Christianity. While the latter are
hoping for an immediate and eternal reward, the former do not have any other purpose but to clear their con-
science and serve humanity’s cause.37

According to Leon, the primordial duty of the scientist and of free thinkers especially was to put an
end to supernatural beliefs that ‘have been burdening humanity for thousands of years, by vulgariz-
ing goodness, beauty and truth’.38
Leon’s opinions led to harsh criticism from the Orthodox circles of the day. Thus, in 1909 the
newspaper Luminatorul39 considered that assertions regarding the conflict between science and reli-
gion contained some truth, but had some false aspects as well. Truth, first of all, resided in the fact
that this reality was valid only for Western Europe, applying particularly where Roman Catholicism
prevailed. In the case of Romania it was proposed that such a conflict had never existed, but had
spawned these different points of view only in more recent times.
The author of the article discussed the synthesis between the Orthodox Church and the Nation,
stressing that ‘the Romanian people did not have any honest purpose of thought, any other leader of

34
Zosin, ‘Ochire asupra liberei cugetări’, 28.
35
Panait Zosin, ‘Emanciparea intelectuală’, Raţiunea, June–July 1912, 1–3.
36
N. Leon, Moniste (Bucharest, Lumen, 1909), 3–11.
37
Leon, Moniste, 36.
38
Leon, Moniste, 11.
39
‘Ce se poate raspunde unor cuvinte neindreptatite’, Luminatorul, October 1909, 1–4.
 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN IDEAS 561

its interests or stronger shield than the Church and Christianity’.40 It also asserted that the ‘infinite’
can be explained only with the help of religion and not science. As a consequence, the National
Association of Free Thinking was regarded as a structure designed to undermine ‘the union and
strengthening’ of Romanians, which could only be provided by the Orthodox Church. Moreover,
the programme and claims of this association were seen as unjustified, as were the actions of the
advocates of this intellectual current. Several issues later, the same newspaper revisited the topic, try-
ing to prove a connection between free thinkers from Iasi (‘Romanian renegades’) and socialist anar-
chic Jews. Romanian free thinkers were considered ‘small-hearted’ in regard to their scientific
knowledge compared to their counterparts in the West. Hence, it said, the early members of the free-
thought movement sought only to mock religion, and this only in order to appear original and pro-
mote ideas they didn’t actually believe in. On the other hand, the ‘greatest’ Western free thinkers
sought to prove, by reason and science, ‘the paths of divine glory’.41 The following year, Luminătorul
returned to the topic again, expanding on the ideas already mentioned and further emphasising that
faith developed by freethinking principles was becoming a matter of concern because it was backed
by people with a certain social status (Thiron and Leon, for example).42 Certain supporters, it
remarked, adhered to this movement only because it was fashionable to do so.
The distinction made by Archimandrite Scriban between Romanian free thinkers and Western
free thinkers clearly indicated that the first incarnation of the movement was in his view the
worst, as their actions were entirely anti-religious and anti-clerical—having nothing to do with free-
dom.43 As a matter of fact, Scriban clearly distinguished free thinking which was irreligious and the
form of free thinking which he considered was implicit in religious belief and respect for the church.
Moreover, Scriban argued that there was a vagueness inherent in the idea of free thinking, since even
a Christian received the right to such free thought from divinity. As a consequence of this fact, Thir-
on’s actions and the establishment of the Association of Free Thinking made no sense whatsoever, as
their only goal was the imposition of atheist dogma upon potential followers.

3. European patterns
3.1. Raţiunea journal
The ways in which the freethought movement established connections with the European trends in
this field are best reflected in Raţiunea magazine. This appeared between 1911 and 1914, being the
main press channel of the Association of Free Thinking in Romania. Even the appearance of a jour-
nal focused on free thinking propaganda represented an adoption of a Western European pattern.44
The first issue of the magazine was dedicated entirely to the second-year commemoration of the
execution of Francesco Ferrer—emphasising, indeed, the transnational orientation of the maga-
zine.45 The guiding principles of the journal were published in the second issue.46 According to
this manifesto, the contributors were defined as free thinkers but as not ‘dogmatic’; they were
open to an integrative pattern of action which aimed at intellectual and economic emancipation.
Although ‘religious lie[s]’ were considered the most dangerous of all, affecting the soul directly,
the journalists aimed to counter them through improved literacy amongst the common people.
Besides this, the journal insisted that although each of the freethinking fellows had political options,
40
‘Ce se poate raspunde’, 2.
41
Tudor Ionescu, ‘Ştiinţa şi religia. Înrîuirea uneia asupra celeilalte şi viceversa’, Luminătorul, March 1910, 11–5.
42
‘Care sunt păcatele mai obişnuite de care suferă poporul nostru şi cum trebuie să lucreze preotul pentru dezrădăcinarea lor’,
Luminătorul, February 1910, 9–10.
43
Scriban, Libera Cugetare, 16.
44
For instance, The Freethinker journal in Britain was founded by G.W. Foote in 1881. Jim Herrick, Vision and Realism: A Hundred
Years of The Freethinker (London, G.W. Foote, 1982).
45
C.I. Dicescu, ‘Ferrer’, Raţiunea, October 1911, 2–3. See also Daniel Laqua, ‘Freethinkers, anarchists and Francisco Ferrer: the making
of a transnational solidarity Campaign’, European Review of History: Revue européenne d’histoire, Special Issue: Transnational Soli-
darities and the Politics of the Left, 1890–1990 21, no. 4 (2014): 467–84.
46
‘Ca „program”’, Raţiunea, November 1911, 1–3.
562 M. ROTAR

there was no room for political debate within the pages of the magazine, democracy being the fore-
most principle.
The ultimate aim of the magazine was the replacement of a cowardly way of thinking in Romania
with free thought, following the model of European states. Accordingly, it was considered that antic-
lericalism was only a first stage for the freethought movement, in consideration of the fact that any
critique had to be made in accordance with a coherent system of ideas. In browsing through journal
collections, we can easily see the Romanian freethinking movement rallying to the European and
global tendencies in the field. Hence, the journal published numerous translations of exponents of
free thinking. Furthermore, on a regular basis, the magazine’s readers were informed about the
main events in the most important European and non-European countries, which appeared
under the heading ‘Out of the Freethought World’. A further point of interest was information
on the ‘International Congresses of Freethought’ provided by Thiron, who frequently attended as
a representative of Romania. Reports on both the Hamburg Congress of 191147 and that of Munich
in 1912 were presented in the pages of the magazine.48 Romania’s representative at these congresses
and at the Lisbon Congress in 1913 was Thiron.49
Regarding the goals of the international freethinking movement as affirmed before the First
World War, we notice that within the issues of Ratiunea journal were articles detailing and publicly
supporting the ideals of peace and justice, prosperity and freedom, which were also presented as
goals during the freethinking congress held in Munich in 1912.50 At the same time, the idea of pacif-
ism was the subject of various articles in Raţiunea,51 some of them translations of articles by Hector
Denis.52
The Western model was also adopted in various manifestos published in the journal, which
pointed out the benefit of separation between church and state in France and Portugal, arguing
that free thinkers like George Clemenceau or Theophile Braga were, firstly, patriots.53 On the
other hand, it is also notable that in the correspondence among the Association of Free Thinking
of Romania, the international association and others in the field (Association Giordano Bruno
from Italy), published in Raţiunea journal, the formula with which they addressed each other was
that of brotherhood.54 Under the umbrella of Raţiunea’s library, propaganda articles were published
that were supposed to extend the idea of free thinking in Romania. Moreover, it published various
translations of the works of John Stuart Mill,55 Robert Ingersoll56 and Jules Barni.57
At the same time, nationalist tendencies were sometimes manifest among followers of free think-
ing in Romania, although the principles of freedom of thought were transnational. Thus, in Raţiunea
journal we come across opinions against the process of Hungarianisation of the Romanians in Trans-
ylvania, and also protests on the one hundredth anniversary since the annexation of Bessarabia by
the Tsarist Empire.58 In Romania, the founding of the association of free thinkers later caused an
amalgamation of various contemporary movements within it. Thus, any movement that was antic-
lerical was considered to belong to the free thinking movement: positivism, monism or social democ-
racy, as demonstrated by the articles published in Raţiunea journal.

47
Constantin Thiron, ‘Congresul monist de la Hamburg. Către Tinerimea Română’, Raţiunea, January 1912, 8–10.
48
Constantin Thiron, ‘Congresul internaţional de liberă cugetare de la Munich’, Raţiunea, September 1912, 16–8.
49
C. Thiron, ‘Evenimente din Portugalia’, Opinia, 11 September 1913, 2.
50
‘Trăiască Libera Cugetare Internaţională!’, Raţiunea, August 1912, 1.
51
‘Libera cugetare şi pacea’, Raţiunea, August 1912, 6–7.
52
‘Libera cugetare şi pacea’, 6–7.
53
‘Manifestul Asociaţiei Ştiintifice’, Raţiunea, January 1912, 11.
54
‘Chestia evreiască în România şi Libera Cugetare mondială’, Raţiunea, January 1913, 70–1; C.I. Dicescu, ‘În chestia evreiască. Răs-
punsul nostru la Adresa Liberei Cugetare mondiale’, Raţiunea, January 1913, 71–2.
55
John Stuart Mill, Libertarea de cugetare şi de discuţie (Bucharest, Biblioteca Mișcărei Sociale, 1910).
56
R.G. Ingersoll, Dumnezeu şi crearea-i (Bucharest, Aurora, 1907).
57
Jules Barni, Martirii liberei cugetǎri. Stoicii-Hypatia (Bucharest, Rațiunea, 1920).
58
‘Rapirea Basarabiei’, Rațiunea, April–May 1912, 9–10; ‘Libera Cugetare și atentatul contra românilor de peste munți’, Rațiunea, 16
June 1913, 92.
 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN IDEAS 563

Religious publications also criticised the establishment of the Library of Propaganda for Free
Thinking in Romania. In 1912, the Christian Orthodox priest Ilie R. Neagoe declared himself dis-
gusted that books and pamphlets from under this umbrella were being sold at the biggest railway
station of the time (Bucharest). He considered this an indecency, saying that the free thinkers
were enemies of society who poison the souls of the common people by taking advantage of their
ignorance. Neagoe considered these publications to be ‘pornographic’ and proposed censorship—
following models used in both France and Germany. On similar lines, a German model was
adopted59 by the Greek Catholic magazine Cultura Crestina, offering a solution through the stronger
development of religious literature as a way of mitigating the effects of free thinking.
Another formula critical of the freethinking movement of Romania which was advanced in reli-
gious publications turned on identifying the city as a corrupting environment, filled with antireli-
gious and anticlerical new ideas. This was the case with an article by Christian Orthodox
archpriest Vasile Gan published in Revista Teologica in 1908, which considered the city to be a mod-
ern-day Sodom and Gomorrah. Religious elements thus reacted vehemently against the Romanian
freethinking movement. For example, Revista Teologica, which was published in Sibiu, further
pressed the ‘Sodom and Gomorrah’ analogy by suggesting that freethinking ideas had come to
Romania via intellectual members who had studied in Paris.60
One of Ion Luca Caragiale’s61 articles indicates that free thinking was already a notable trend in
the beginning of the twentieth century in Romanian society. Caragiale (1852–1912) was one of the
greatest Romanian playwrights and writers. He observed that many of the Christian Orthodox mem-
bers of the city had stopped going to church, considering themselves to be free thinkers. To try and
encourage them to see the folly of their ways, Caragiale invited them to visit the cathedrals and
churches of other confessions in Bucharest, where attendance was still high, and, moreover, to
take into consideration the feelings of their parents, who were Christians. Thus, this theatre writer
considered free thinking had appeared in Romania like a spark among stone-hearted people who
didn’t feel the need for comfort, and who were possessed of a misguided craving for ‘originality’.
In 1912, the magazine Revista Crestina set out an analysis of the freethinking concept and of the
movement it had created.62 The magazine pointed out that the movement had not developed very
much, in spite of the fact that the ideas had been present amongst a large part of the population for
some time. The cause of the birth of free thinking was not considered to have been superficiality in
religious matters, but rather the fact that the Church had not had a very consistent or direct reaction
to it. As a result, it stated that both the Greek Catholic and the Orthodox churches should act to
represent the Romanian people simultaneously—both proclaiming themselves to be the true church
of Jesus Christ and therefore in mutual danger. It was considered that any action was permissible,
due to the poisonous harm posed by free thinking, and that otherwise the churches should be con-
sidered to be neglecting their duty to society. Hence, the subject was to be raised during catechism
classes, and in official letters addressed by archpriests to clerics and others, as well as through the
censorship of dangerous books and publications. The latter was not considered an extreme measure,
given that the chief goal of the European freethinking movement was the ascent of human rationality
to the detriment of religion and so, implicitly, the destruction of social harmony.
Education was another important issue in the programme of the Romanian freethinking move-
ment, following the same discursive route as in the rest of Europe. According to a law of 1864,63 the
study of religion in school was mandatory—being taught by priests. Debates and various associated
changes in the religious curriculum from elsewhere in Europe (for example in France, 1884) had
influenced a number of the Romanian intellectuals at the time. This is one explanation for the

59
Zaharie Popp, ‘Literatura religioasă’, Cultura creştină, 25 February 1914, 108.
60
Senin, ‘Lucruri ştiute’, Revista Teologică, August 1914, 170.
61
Ion Luca Caragiale, ‘Noţite critice’, Foaie populară, 1 January 1901, 7–8.
62
Alexandru Rusu, ‘În jurul libertăţii de gândire’, Cultura Creştină, 10 November, 528–32.
63
G. Alexianu and C. St. Stoicescu, ‘Legea asupra instrucţiunii din 5 decembrie 1864’, in Codul General al României, ed. G. Alexianu
and C. St. Stoicescu, vol. 4, 1861–1906 (Bucharest, Imprimeria Centrală, 1941), 48–70.
564 M. ROTAR

fact that, starting at the end of the nineteenth century, Romania saw many discussions on this sub-
ject, one of the foremost voices being that of Constantin Butureanu.64 His views were discussed in
various articles in Raţiunea. These articles began in the very first issue of the magazine, in which
Ferrer was commemorated, in an apologetic article about his secular teaching. At the same time,
there were multiple layers to the discourse regarding the secularisation of Romanian education,
including a petition regarding the suppression of theological education and of religious classes
being taught both in secular education and in primary schools. The idea of the secularisation of
elementary/primary education was raised concretely for the first time in 1894, at a congress of tea-
chers held in Ploiesti, where a resolution was unanimously passed regarding this issue.65 According
to N.E. Ratiu, the lack of Romanian freethinking propaganda at the time had halted change—for the
moment.
Ratiu’s66 interventions in the pages of Ratiunea journal are relevant for understanding the pres-
ence of religion in the primary education curriculum of the time. He acidly criticised the primary-
school secular manuals for using a variety of religious examples, which, in his view, destroyed the
foundation of basic scientific notions, promoting stupidity and leading to a decline of progress.
Ratiu considered that the ‘fight against these moral cataclysms’ was a patriotic duty. Ratiu argued
that some of the examples used in primary school manuals, regarding miraculous healings per-
formed by priests, could undermine a child’s appreciation of science and medicine, and even
undo the state’s efforts to create a hospital system.

3.2. Anti-semitism
Anti-semitism was a prominent topic within the Romanian freethinking movement. At the end of
the nineteenth century and at the beginning of the twentieth, this was among the chief subjects of
debate in the public arena. On one hand, discussions were spurred by the high percentage of the Jew-
ish population in Romanian society (they were the most significant minority, the greater portion of
them living in the cities and the Moldova region; according to the 1899 census they accounted for
4.5% of the population), along with the economic implications of their presence.67 On the other
hand, there was an overt anti-semitic movement in Romanian society at the time, and the Jewish
population was taking concrete steps for its political emancipation. Debates regarding article 7 of
the 1866 Constitution relating to their citizenship were engaged in due to international pressure,
the issue finding only a partial solution in 1914 (where Jews received individual naturalisation,
but not collectively or generally).
The first accusations regarding the relation between the free thinkers and Judaism were formu-
lated even before the movement was born in Romania. For example, in the 1883 Encyclical (Official
Letter) of the Romanian Orthodox Church Synod, it was mentioned that the decline of religious feel-
ing was caused by the influence of negative secular Western ideas.68 These ideas were considered
alien to the Romanian mentality and were promoted by the ‘agents of the Israeli alliance’. Thus,
the freethinking movement, seen as ‘the abhorrence of all human and religious laws/norms’, was
directly linked to anticlericalism—considered an alien transplantation—there being at the time no
clerical or anticlerical party. In this context, Orthodox priests were encouraged to strongly disap-
prove of these ideas, seen as illusions, in the name of the symbiosis between the Romanian Orthodox
Church and the Nation.
A.C. Cuza (1857–1947)—a professor at the University of Iasi, and a holder of important public
positions such as member of the Romanian Academy since 1936—held the most extreme position
64
Constantin Buţureanu, ‘Curente pedagogice. Învăţământul laic’, in Antologia (1910), 375–80.
65
N. Raţiu, ‘Cultura românească’, Raţiunea, June–July 1912, 5.
66
N. Raţiu, ‘Cultura Românească’, Raţiunea, March 1912, 28–9.
67
Gheorghe Platon, ‘Problema evreiască’, in Istoria românilor, vol. 2: de la Independenţă la Marea Unire (1878–1918) (Bucharest, Enci-
clopedică, 2003), 69–75.
68
‘Enciclica Sfântului Sinod’, Biserica Ortodoxă Română, August 1883, 456–7.
 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN IDEAS 565

in this sense. According to his views as expressed in an article from 1909,69 there was an inter-
national Jewish conspiracy meant to take over all who did not share their faith. Cuza declared that
Jews were acting in such a way as to destroy Christian states by ‘attacking the four granite pillars
of society’: the Nation, by promoting cosmopolitan ideas (such as socialism); the Army, by
attempting to destroy the military spirit; the Monarchy through republican ideas; and finally
to destroy Religion and the Romanian Orthodox Church. This explains why Cuza attacked Con-
stantin Thiron, under the pretext that he was as much a representative of free thinking. Cuza also
vehemently criticised other representatives of the Romanian freethinking movement, expressing
his perplexity that such people should be Romanians, baptised in the Orthodox faith, and not
Jews.
Under A.C. Cuza’s influence there were attempts to take action against free thinkers in general
and against Thiron and Paul Bujor in particular. Thus, it was considered that these people were
in direct collaboration with Jews from Iasi, who managed the socialist movement, in order to attack
everything ‘holy’ in the country and in Romanian society. Hence, their actions were considered
incompatible with their official status as university professors, because they insulted the national
institutions and the state, thus also denigrating the Orthodox Church. Due to their actions and
ideas, they should be brought up for public judgment—‘named and shamed’—so that people
could recognise and avoid them. According to correspondence published in Tribuna Poporului in
1910, Thiron was put on trial by military court for his promotion of free thought, because at the
time he held the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in Reserve.70 He was labelled the ‘deprecator of the
ancestors’ church’, and his actions described as the ‘blind pursuit of originality’.
Facing these accusations, the adherents of free thinking endeavoured to offer a coherent answer in
the pages of Raţiunea. The answer, though, was focused not only on rebutting criticism, but also on
explaining the Jewish situation in Romania to the leaders of the international movement of free thin-
kers. In response, the leaders of organisations such as the Italian chapter and the International Fed-
eration of Free Thinking expressed their perplexity and dismay regarding the treatment of the Jews.
This was initially published in Raţiunea journal and was then copied by all major Romanian
newspapers.71
An important aspect of the antireligious attitude adopted in Raţiunea concerns its critique of
Judaism and its negative attitudes towards some of its own followers. These actions were explained
as being the most appropriate reply to accusations that the Romanian freethinking movement was
trying to replace the Orthodox faith with the Mosaic one. For example, the journal published a
letter from a Jewish man living in a village of Moldova, explaining the difficulties he had faced
since becoming a free thinker.72 At the same time, Raţiunea highlighted some of the contradictions
of the Mosaic religion, which it criticised from the perspective of freedom of conscience and the
scientific spirit of the time.73 Concurrently, Mihail Cretoiu published an article in Raţiunea in
which A.C. Cuza was described as senile and ill-willed towards anybody with different opinions
to his own.74
P. Zosin, one of the leaders of the Romanian freethinking movement, considered the ‘Jewish situ-
ation’ to be an ‘obvious offense to modern civilisation’.75 In his view, this situation could be solved
only in a larger context by implementing a universal vote, decentralisation, improved literacy and
mass education.

69
A.C. Cuza, ‘Conspiraţia jidovească internaţională. Anexă la „Jidanii în presă”’, Neamul Românesc, 25 October 1909, 2034–8.
70
‘Scrisori din Bucureşti’, Tribuna Poporului, 8 September 1910, 5.
71
‘Chestia evreiască din România şi Libera Cugetare mondială’, Raţiunea, November 1912, 26–7.
72
‘Toleranţa evreilor. Un nou caz Uriel Acosta’, Raţiunea, September 1912, 26–7.
73
I.I. Ilişeşteanu, ‘Judaizmul’, Raţiunea, November 1911, 3–4.
74
Mihail Creţoiu, ‘Scrisoare deschisă dementului senil a ce cuza’, Raţiunea, June 1913, 74–5.
75
Panait Zosin, ‘Noi şi chestia evreiască’, Raţiunea, June 1913, 83–4.
566 M. ROTAR

3.3. Feminism
Historical studies have highlighted the association between the freethinking movement and the issue
of feminism.76 We see this correlation in Romania, which was likely imitative of a Western pattern.
Maria Butureanu, one of the most important figures in the women’s emancipation movement in
Romania, was also a member of the Association of Free Thinking. According to Raţiunea, though,
not all the feminist movements in Romania at that time were animated by good intentions. In fact,
some of the feminist associations were directly connected to religious and clerical circles. According
to Raţiunea this represented a clear contradiction of the Biblical model, which promoted the idea of
male superiority.77
On the other hand, it was pointed out that the evolution of feminism as a social movement at the
beginning of the nineteenth century showed that it had as an ultimate goal an ideology of equality
between sexes. Raţiunea suggested that the major condition for this idea to become reality was the
acceptance of positivism (positive science) as a guiding principle for that ideology. That meant that
women had to adopt a ‘healthy culture based only on true science and not on illusions and preju-
dices, on lies and formalities’.78 The Western model served as proof that the condition of the
women in a country reflected the cultural condition of that nation.

3.4. Socialism
The relation between the Romanian freethinking movement and socialism was very strong, as evi-
denced by the fact that some of the leaders were at the same time promoters and members of the only
left-wing political ideology in the country at that time. Once again, the relationship between these
two philosophies was manifest before the first appearance of free thinking in Romania. In 1890,79
for example, I. Nadejde pointed out this connection by reference to an example from Germany,
where some parties encouraged workers to gather in communities of free thinkers—this being con-
sidered another bourgeois way to take advantage of the working class. In this context, Nadejde
argued that Romania should follow the pattern of the German social-democrats, who considered
that their fight should not be directed against religion, but rather for the rights of the proletariat
—all freethinking actions being developed to fulfil this goal. Nadejde later described the excesses
of socialist free thinkers as being negative, proclaiming that offenses against religious adherents
were unjustified, as were declarations that religion is quackery.80 A similar idea was supported by
Constantin Mille, a socialist leader, who considered faith (or the lack of it) to be a personal matter,
which should not affect the ideas of a socialist party.81 The strengthening bond between the two
movements was demonstrated by the fact that important socialist leaders such as Alexandru Dobro-
geanu Gherea and Cristian Racovski later published articles about this relationship in Raţiunea.
Gherea pushed for the separation between church and state, after the French model.82 In his
view, the performance and preaching of any faith should not necessarily suffer by following this
model—the advantage for the Orthodox Church being even greater, since the religion was suppo-
sedly of divine source, and therefore untouchable. According to Gherea, another benefit to the
church would be autonomy: the freedom of self-governance preventing any secular humiliation,
as it would no longer fall under its sphere of influence. Moreover, in 1910, Thiron addressed an offi-
cial letter to the leaders of the Social Democrat Party, after the programme released by this party
76
Laura Schwarz, ‘Freethought, Free Love and Feminism: Secularist Debates on Marriage and Sexual Morality: England c. 1850–
1885’, Women’s History Review 19, no. 5 (2010): 775–93.
77
Al. Iliescu, ‘Feminizmul românesc’, Raţiunea, June–September 1912, 7–10.
78
Cleto, ‘Ce urmăreşte adevăratul femenizm’, Raţiunea, August 1912, 5–6.
79
Ion Nădejde, ‘Socialismul şi liber cugetătorii (1890)’, in Gândirea revoluţionară din România despre religie (din traditiile concepţiei
materialiste despre lume), ed. Augustin Deac, Ioan Iacoş, Teodor Popescu, and Natalia Tampa (Bucharest, Politică, 1982), 137.
80
Ion Nădejde, ‘Ce e rău şi ce e bine, te întreabă şi socoate (Eminescu)’ (1894), in Gândirea, 167.
81
Constantin Mille, ‘Religia şi socialismul (1891)’, in Gândirea, 140.
82
G. Alexe (Alexandru Dobrogeanu Gherea), ‘Social democraţia şi Biserica’, Raţiunea, June–July 1912, 18–22.
 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN IDEAS 567

stipulated the separation of church and state (the first time that the programme of a Romanian party
had included this recommendation) during its restructuring.83 He pointed to the key Romanian
issues of the time and formulated European models of collaboration. He invoked the mutual goal
that had linked the two movements in their infancy, this being the complete secularisation of the
state. Thiron encouraged the Romanian socialists to follow the German model by openly supporting
the movement of free thinking, gaining, in this way, the obvious benefits: access to the electoral capi-
tal of the adherents of free thinking. The socialist leaders84 as C. Petrescu were also critics of Roma-
nian free thinking, considering that Thiron’s principles left no room for invocations of nationalism.
On the other hand, one Raţiunea journalist, C.I. Dicescu (1893–1935), was at the same time a
deputy-journalist for the socialist newspaper Romania Muncitoare.

3.5. Secular ceremonies

Support for secular ceremonies was a distinctive mark of the freethinkers, showing even more clearly
their separation from religious tradition. The French historian Rene Remond considered these kinds
of ceremony to be the last act in the process of defying the Christian Church. In Europe, this model
developed most prominently after 1850,85 with both the Belgian and French cases being relevant
examples.
The subject of public funerals needs to be examined in a broader context, following the same pat-
tern of secularisation as weddings or civil unions. Furthermore, both Romanian socialists and free
thinkers promoted civil unions and secular funerals, overtly following European patterns.
In Romania, the issue of secular funerals remains of major importance, especially because the
possibility of performing them has only been legally approved since 2014. The birth of Romanian
secular funerals is a direct consequence of the freethinking movement, and it represents a clear
example of importing Western patterns. The disparity between Romania and the rest of Europe is
obvious in the birth of the freethinking movement in general and of secular funerals in particular.
Although in 1879 there was a failed attempt at permitting a secular funeral, only in 1891 did the
first successful attempt occur—with the funeral of poet Arghir Parua. The case of 1879 concerned
the desire of Nicolae Zbucu Codreanu, a doctor and socialist leader, to be buried without a priest.
His will remained unfulfilled, due to an order by Archpriest Ghenadie of Arges to forcibly perform
the religious funeral service. The situation led to a public scandal, with polemics in the press and
various interpellations in Parliament. The most significant reactions were, on one hand, those of
Codreanu’s supporters and, on the other, the replies of poet Mihai Eminescu (1850–1889, considered
the most famous Romanian poet).
The first expression of support for secular funerals was signed by a group of intellectuals.86 Their
revolt was made in the name of freedom of conscience, guaranteed in both Romania and the rest of
Europe, regarding the failure to fulfil Codreanu’s last wish. From the opposing side, Eminescu pro-
claimed87 the formula of symbiosis between the Romanian Nation and the Romanian Orthodox
Church, and the importance of the latter in the preservation of national being/essence. He concluded
that persons who were at odds with the Orthodox Church were not ‘true’ Romanians, but enemies of
the country.
We have been able to identify seven cases of secular funerals prior to 1914, but, according to
Raţiunea, only two of them were performed for free thinkers, and the rest were for socialists. Signifi-
cantly, in 1905 Thiron expressed his wish to have a secular funeral due to his status as a free thinker,
and took this opportunity to establish his secular funeral monument, which became the first in
83
Constantin Thrion, ‘Congresul socialist’, Raţiunea, June–July 1912, 29–30.
84
Constantin Petrescu, ‘Biblioteca Raţiunea, nr. 2. Dări de seamă (1910)’, in Gândirea, 216.
85
Rene Remond, Religie şi societate în Europa. Secularizarea în secolele al XIX-lea şi XX 1780–2000, trans. G. Schifi (Iaşi, Polirom 2003),
89.
86
‘Libertatea consciintei’, Românul, 25 January 1879, 74–5.
87
Mihai Eminescu, Opere, vol. 10 (Bucharest, Academiei 1989), 187.
568 M. ROTAR

Romania. This wish was fulfilled in 1924, and, according to media reports,88 was the first secular fun-
eral in Moldova.
The proponents of religion retained a critical view of secular funerals. For example, Archiman-
drite Scriban considered that the secular funeral oath for free thinkers adopted after the freethinking
congress in Brussels (1908) represented a contradiction of freethinking principles, because it did not
give the option for someone to reverse their preference, should they wish to change their mind.89

3.5. Critics
The free thinkers of Romania did not limit their actions to a blind admiration for their Western
brothers, and indeed in some situations they also expressed criticism of them. For example, Zosin
was explicit in an article from Raţiunea that focusing solely on challenging issues, without the
implicit formulation of an ideology, would weaken, stagnate and diminish the movement.90 His
arguments referred to the early twentieth-century French model of state secularisation measures,
which gradually ‘pulverised’ the freethinking movement. In his view, such a situation could have
been avoided by a stronger anchorage of the freethinking movement in experimental and proven
science, and, in this way, the routine would have disappeared as well. Thus, the general adoption
of positivism and its promotion by free thinkers appeared to be the best option for the movement
to progress. In conclusion, Zosin considered that the complete expression of the freethinking ideol-
ogy could be fulfilled by taking on and reuniting the ideas promoted by the salvatory triad: socialism
(as a social and economic solution, aimed at gaining an adequate place in the societal structure for
workers); feminism (as a solution to social and moral issues, with women’s emancipation considered
to bring major benefits to the education of future generations); and positivism. All of these elements,
reunited, were meant to bring the emancipation of humanity, with ‘a clear place for nation, family
and individual’.91
After World War I, some of the supporters of the movement of free thinking in Romania,
especially the Social Democrats, adhered to communist ideas. Some fled to the Soviet Union,
where they died: C.I. Dicescu, Alexandru Dobrogeanu Gherea, Cristian Racovsky.

4. Positivism
Positivist ideas entered Romania in the second half of the nineteenth century and they were
accepted only by some personalities. It was only before the outburst of World War I that these
ideas started to be disseminated in the society due to Zosin’s efforts. Zosin started to translate
Auguste Comte’s writings into Romanian, and he also organised public conferences about the
movement. He also started a correspondence with the International Positivist Federation. Between
1916 and 1917, Zosin published 20 articles on positivism in Adevărul newspaper in order to make
people aware of the movement’s features. In spite of the fact that Zosin turned to positivism, he
continued to support the ideas of the free-thinking, especially those similar to positivism such
as the idea of a laic education system and that of the development of the scientific spirit in Roma-
nia. Zosin confessed that he adhered to positivism because the free thinking movement had a weak
impact in society, being confined to the elite level, while positivism was a powerful ideology
capable of producing change in society.92

88
‘Înmormântarea laică a unui liber cugetător’, Opinia, 10 August 1924, 3.
89
Scriban, Libera Cugetare, 12–3.
90
Panait Zosin, ‘Scopul liberei cugetări’, Raţiunea, October–November 1912, 43–4.
91
Zosin, ‘Scopul liberei cugetări’, 44.
92
Panait Zosin, Pozitivismul în România (Iași, Societatea de Cultură Pozitivă 1913), 10.
 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN IDEAS 569

5. Conclusions
Our analysis proves that the specific profile of Romanian society of the time explains in principle the
disparity between the birth of free thinking in Romania and in the rest of Europe. Thus, the country
became a national state (1859), gained its independence from the Ottoman Empire (1877) and took
the path towards modernisation. In this way, the disparities between Romania and Western
countries were evident in many aspects: economic, social and cultural (this included the circulation
of ideas and their applicability within society). On the other hand, the development of Romanian free
thinking and its transformation into a movement after 1909 proves that the efforts of some repre-
sentatives of the Romanian intellectual elite were in synchronicity with evolutions in the European
field. The freethinking movement adopted what were probably the most radical measures of mod-
ernisation, thus generating conflict with the representatives of religion: the separation of church and
state, laicisation of the public schools, and secular ceremonies.
The freethinking ideas, as well as their pre-war critics, were not merely imports of Western prin-
ciples. More likely, these concepts were adapted to fit the specificities of Romanian society, causing
an effervescence of ideas. It is, however, notable that the French and German models were essentially
the main sources for the development of Romanian free thinking, including its institutionalisation.
The importance of this research consists also in the fact that it brings into focus some of the differ-
ences between the debates around the freethought movement in Eastern and Western Europe. The
final question is whether the freethought movement in Romania until the outbreak of the First
World War can fairly be said to represent a success. Considering the fact that over 80% of the Roma-
nian population was illiterate and living in rural areas, it is obvious that we cannot talk about the
movement truly being successful. At most, we can emphasise the adhesion to the movement of a
small part of the Romanian elite, and some of the proponents of socialism.