

DOI number: 10.53604/rjbns.v8i1
Link to full articles: https://www.ceeol.com/search/journal-detail?id=102
Editorial Foreword
Silviu Miloiu
President of the Romanian Association for Baltic and Nordic Studies, E-mail: silviu.miloiu@valahia.ro
Volume 8, issue no. 1 (2016) of Revista Română pentru Studii Baltice şi Nordice / The Romanian Journal for Baltic and Nordic Studies (RRSBN) gathers articles dealing with history, literary history and literary studies. The first group of articles engaged with topics related to Nordic and Baltic history from the early Middle Ages to the Modern Age. Such is the article which opens the journal signed by Costel Coroban. His thesis is that Konungs skuggsjá (King’s Mirror or Speculum Regale), the piece of work elaborated in 1250 under King Hákon Hákonarson (1217-1263) for his son, future King Magnús lagabœtir (1263-1280), emphasizes piety as one of the essential features of a good Christian. Cases of arrogance and individualism have to be chastened and that was one of the essential attributes and duties of a sovereign. Roxana-Ema Dreve tackles the national identity building in Norway following the separation from Denmark and the creation of a union with Sweden. The article addresses the 1830s’ developments especially with regard to the puzzling debate on the spoken and written national languages and the polemics of Henrik Wergeland and Johan Sebastian Welhaven. Henrik Ibsen continues to inspire inquiries in fields such as literature, social sciences, culture, philosophy as he did when he lived. Gianina Druță studies Ibsen’s masterpiece Hedda Gabler inspired by Gilles Deleuze’s concepts such as deterritorialisation, antigenealogy, rhizome or alliance. Dalia Bukelevičiūtė opens new perspectives in the field of social and welfare of Lithuanian population in Latvia during the interwar period and points out to the unbalanced situation between the two neighboring states of Latvia and Lithuania. While the number of Latvians in Lithuania who needed social protection was meagre, the number of Lithuanians in Latvia was considerable. This posed difficulties to the Lithuanian Government confronted, on one hand, with the needs of Lithuanians, the higher expenses of social services in Latvia and the desire to keep up the Lithuanian identity of the population across the border. This resulted into a wavering policy of the Lithuanian Governments which, however, always returned to the Convention on social assistance concluded with the Latvian counterparts in 1924.
This issue of our journal continues to tackle the perceptions of Nordic peoples on Romania, in this case Mihaela Mehedinţi-Beiean depicting the Nordic and Russian travellers’ recollections of corruption and political instability imbedded into the Phanariot system of the 18th century Romania.
Finally, this issue brings to the fore a Norwegian personality with a significant role in the Romanian-Norwegian relations, author of chapters, articles and books dealing with this topic: Jardar Seim. Crina Leon successfully sails through the memories of Professor Seim’s first encounters of Romania and the developments of this interest into a research topic.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Silviu Miloiu
Editorial Foreword 5
DOI number: 10.53604/rjbns.v8i1_1
Costel Coroban
Power, ideology and piety in high medieval Norway: The King’s Mirror 7
DOI number: 10.53604/rjbns.v8i1_2
Mihaela Mehedinti-Beiean
Political instability and corruption. The Phanariot regime as seen by Russian and Nordic travellers 21
DOI number: 10.53604/rjbns.v8i1_3
Roxana-Ema Dreve
Norway’s political / linguistic / literary policies in the 1830s 45
DOI number: 10.53604/rjbns.v8i1_4
Gianina Druță
Hedda Gabler: between territories 53
DOI number: 10.53604/rjbns.v8i1_5
Dalia Bukelevičiūtė
Social security for Lithuanian citizens in Latvia in 1919-1939 71
DOI number: 10.53604/rjbns.v8i1_6
Crina Leon
Jardar Seim and the history of a Norwegian-Romanian story 91
DOI number: 10.53604/rjbns.v8i1_7
Call for Papers 99