The work completed and the main results achieved in TRANSHIROL so far fully cover the first two project objectives and partially address the third:
1) Drafting the theoretical and methodological framework of a transnational literary history. This process involved not only discussing state-of-the-art instruments and practices but also developing and refining the theoretical tools proposed by the team. To this end, three special issues were published in Transilvania (nos. 7-8/2021; no. 10/2022) and Studia Universitatis Babeș-Bolyai – Philologia (no. 3/2022), dedicated to the latest and most challenging approaches to Romanian literature. Of the concepts proposed within the project, the theoretical distinction between cultural matrix and cultural model was developed and then applied in the analysis of a paradigmatic case for Romanian culture (see the collective volume “The German Model in Romanian Culture,” Berlin: Peter Lang, 2023), while another study used the mechanism of cultural triangulation to explain Paul Celan’s work.
2) The transnational study of Romanian literature (Phase 1: c. 1500–1830). Since this objective encompassed not only works and phenomena associated with “old” Romanian literature but also a transnational redefinition of Romanian literature and an analysis of its foundational myths, the project’s second-year activities primarily focused on these latter aspects. In exploring the boundaries of Romanian literature, emphasis was placed on analyzing Romanian-born authors who wrote in languages other than Romanian. Key contributions in this area include the collective volume "The German Model in Romanian Culture," case studies on Paul Celan and Herta Müller as representatives of German-language literature originating from Romania, and a series of publications on Hungarian minority literature in Romania. To better disseminate the latter dimension of the project, a special issue of the Korunk journal was published in 2022. Regarding the foundational myths of Romanian literature, one of TRANSHIROL’s challenges is to replace the national myth of “Miorița” (a talking sheep from a Romanian folk ballad) with the transnational myth of Dracula. Several articles on this topic have been authored as part of the project so far.
3) The transnational study of Romanian literature (Phase 2: 1830–1948). Although the current reporting period only partially covers the time allocated for this objective, the project team has effectively addressed the most relevant literary operators of the era: the intersection of literature with other forms of discourse, the most representative genres and authors, intercultural exchanges, and identity representations. For instance, the team examined various genres, such as the social/extractivist novel, feminist novel, children’s literature, modern and avant-garde poetry, and gave particular attention to the reception of various writers and literary paradigms in Romanian literature, including Ibsen and expressionism.
