Mahala și periferie în romanul interbelic

The article is focused on the theoretical distinguo between “slum” and “periphery”, as well as on the representations of these socio-cultural concepts in the Romanian interwar fiction. On the one hand, we should keep in mind that, since the end of the 19th c., the “slum” is imagined both psychologically, as a state of mind, and geo-sociologically, as an earlier stage in the development of Bucharest’s suburban areas. Following in I.L. Caragiale’s footsteps, the “slum” was depicted by such novelists as Mihai Celerianu, Damian Stănoiu, or Gib Mihăescu. On the other hand, the “periphery” represents a space newly created due to the expansion of the city, during industrialization. The social report was the non-literary genre which informed the realist fiction depicting this space and its specific social issues. George Mihail Zamfirescu, Carol Ardeleanu or Constantin Barcaroiu were the most significant novelists who dealt with this topos. This paper also aims to look at the gradual displacement from the cosmic and critical perspective on the “slum” to the compassionate and militant attitude towards the “periphery” and its social problems, in the Romanian interwar fiction.