The Modernization of Romania -- A Success or A Failure?

On the question of modernization many a historian have written in the past decades, including Gh. Platon, Ion Bulei, Victor Axenciuc, loan Scurtu, and others, plus sociologists, psychologists and writers such as Liviu Antonesei. The approaches vary greatly in terms of method and interpretation, from positive attitudes that tacitly assume a success in the process of modernization of Romania - if we think of the period between the rule of Alexandra loan Cuza and World War II, to a negative view, as we suggest in the title. In conclusion, we can say that by the debut of the First World War "Romania's economic and social body, by its partial contents, by the trends and perspectives of its development in the capitalist European context, was generally emerging as a capitalist unit with an irreversible evolution with its entire set of factors and mechanisms of market economy, with its specific structures, with its advantages and disadvantages, with its problems and contradictions" (Axenciuc, 2000, 214). The premises of Romania's development at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century will manifest themselves anew between the Wars in a fresh social, economic and political context. There is an organic continuity between the two periods. To return to the question in the title - success or failure - we believe that the modernization of Romania is a significant and undeniable reality because the direction of Romania's social dynamics was clearly ascendant, both in quality, and in quantity. The level of modernization must be analysed with a finely nuanced contextualisation for each and every domain, both internally and externally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]