Henri H. Stahl
Encyclopedia
Henri H. Stahl was a Romania
n Marxist
cultural anthropologist
, ethnographer
, sociologist
, and social historian
.
to a family of Alsatian
and French
-Swiss
ancestry, he was the son of Henri Stahl
(a promoter of stenography
), as well as the younger brother of the sociologist and Social Democratic Party
activist Şerban Voinea, and of the novelist Henriette Yvonne Stahl. He was married to Margareta, a known painter.
After completing law studies and being awarded a doctorate
, Stahl became interested in the work of Dimitrie Gusti
, and was consequently one of his most prominent collaborators. Joining the staff of the Department of Sociology, Ethics, Politics and Aesthetics
at the University of Bucharest
's Faculty of Letters and Philosophy (where he later became a professor emeritus
), Stahl first assisted Gusti and Gheorghe Vlădescu-Răcoasa in the vast interdisciplinary
enterprise of creating monograph
s dedicated to Romanian villages. In 1936, Gusti and Stahl, together with Victor Ion Popa
, established the Bucharest Village Museum
.
A member of the Criterion society, he made himself known for supporting Austromarxist
positions, and, around 1932, was involved in a polemic with the Leninist
Lucreţiu Pătrăşcanu
. In 1934, alongside Alexandru Cristian Tell, Mircea Eliade
, Mircea Vulcănescu
, and Petru Comarnescu
, he sat on the board of Criterion magazine (which claimed not to be linked with the former society). He contributed to Dreapta, a nationalist
magazine, but left it after the latter attacked Nicolae Iorga
, and cited a conflict in political opinions. By 1938, contrary to the prevalent choices of his generation, Stahl declared himself an anti-fascist
.
After World War II
and the onset of the communist regime
, Stahl was involved in projects to revive the sociology field; he was successful only after 1960, when he began working on Miron Constantinescu
's staff at the Romanian Academy
's Bibliotheca Historica Romaniae.
In 1990, he was elected a member of the Romanian Academy.
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
n Marxist
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
cultural anthropologist
Cultural anthropology
Cultural anthropology is a branch of anthropology focused on the study of cultural variation among humans, collecting data about the impact of global economic and political processes on local cultural realities. Anthropologists use a variety of methods, including participant observation,...
, ethnographer
Ethnography
Ethnography is a qualitative method aimed to learn and understand cultural phenomena which reflect the knowledge and system of meanings guiding the life of a cultural group...
, sociologist
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
, and social historian
Social history
Social history, often called the new social history, is a branch of History that includes history of ordinary people and their strategies of coping with life. In its "golden age" it was a major growth field in the 1960s and 1970s among scholars, and still is well represented in history departments...
.
Biography
Born in BucharestBucharest
Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River....
to a family of Alsatian
Alsace
Alsace is the fifth-smallest of the 27 regions of France in land area , and the smallest in metropolitan France. It is also the seventh-most densely populated region in France and third most densely populated region in metropolitan France, with ca. 220 inhabitants per km²...
and French
French people
The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...
-Swiss
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
ancestry, he was the son of Henri Stahl
Henri Stahl
Henri Stahl was a Romanian stenographer and writer. Stahl was the chief stenographer of the Romanian Parliament and in 1908, he created an original system of a stenography, which became the Romanian stenography standard. In 1914, he published the first Romanian "classic science fiction" novel, Un...
(a promoter of stenography
Shorthand
Shorthand is an abbreviated symbolic writing method that increases speed or brevity of writing as compared to a normal method of writing a language. The process of writing in shorthand is called stenography, from the Greek stenos and graphē or graphie...
), as well as the younger brother of the sociologist and Social Democratic Party
Romanian Social Democratic Party (defunct)
The Romanian Social Democratic Party was a social-democratic political party in Romania. It published the magazine România Muncitoare, and later Socialismul, Lumea Nouă, and Libertatea.-Early party:...
activist Şerban Voinea, and of the novelist Henriette Yvonne Stahl. He was married to Margareta, a known painter.
After completing law studies and being awarded a doctorate
Doctorate
A doctorate is an academic degree or professional degree that in most countries refers to a class of degrees which qualify the holder to teach in a specific field, A doctorate is an academic degree or professional degree that in most countries refers to a class of degrees which qualify the holder...
, Stahl became interested in the work of Dimitrie Gusti
Dimitrie Gusti
Dimitrie Gusti was a Romanian sociologist, ethnologist, historian, and voluntarist philosopher; a professor at the University of Iaşi and the University of Bucharest, he served as Romania's Minister of Education in 1932-1933...
, and was consequently one of his most prominent collaborators. Joining the staff of the Department of Sociology, Ethics, Politics and Aesthetics
Aesthetics
Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more scientifically defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste...
at the University of Bucharest
University of Bucharest
The University of Bucharest , in Romania, is a university founded in 1864 by decree of Prince Alexander John Cuza to convert the former Saint Sava Academy into the current University of Bucharest.-Presentation:...
's Faculty of Letters and Philosophy (where he later became a professor emeritus
Emeritus
Emeritus is a post-positive adjective that is used to designate a retired professor, bishop, or other professional or as a title. The female equivalent emerita is also sometimes used.-History:...
), Stahl first assisted Gusti and Gheorghe Vlădescu-Răcoasa in the vast interdisciplinary
Interdisciplinarity
Interdisciplinarity involves the combining of two or more academic fields into one single discipline. An interdisciplinary field crosses traditional boundaries between academic disciplines or schools of thought, as new needs and professions have emerged....
enterprise of creating monograph
Monograph
A monograph is a work of writing upon a single subject, usually by a single author.It is often a scholarly essay or learned treatise, and may be released in the manner of a book or journal article. It is by definition a single document that forms a complete text in itself...
s dedicated to Romanian villages. In 1936, Gusti and Stahl, together with Victor Ion Popa
Victor Ion Popa
Victor Ion Popa , in Moldavia, Romania – March 30, 1946 in Bucharest) was a Romanian dramatist.He went to primary school in the village of Călmăţui where his father was a teacher. At Iaşi he finished his first five years of junior high/high school and his last two years of high school at the...
, established the Bucharest Village Museum
Village Museum
The Village Museum is an open-air ethnographic museum located in the Herăstrău Park , showcasing traditional Romanian village life. The museum extends to over 100,000 m2, and contains 272 authentic peasant farms and houses from all over Romania.It was created in 1936 by Dimitrie Gusti, Victor Ion...
.
A member of the Criterion society, he made himself known for supporting Austromarxist
Austromarxism
Austromarxism was a Marxist theoretical current, led by Victor Adler, Otto Bauer, Karl Renner and Max Adler, members of the Social Democratic Workers' Party of Austria during the late decades of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and the First Austrian Republic...
positions, and, around 1932, was involved in a polemic with the Leninist
Leninism
In Marxist philosophy, Leninism is the body of political theory for the democratic organisation of a revolutionary vanguard party, and the achievement of a direct-democracy dictatorship of the proletariat, as political prelude to the establishment of socialism...
Lucreţiu Pătrăşcanu
Lucretiu Patrascanu
Lucreţiu Pătrăşcanu was a Romanian communist politician and leading member of the Communist Party of Romania , also noted for his activities as a lawyer, sociologist and economist. For a while, he was a professor at Bucharest University...
. In 1934, alongside Alexandru Cristian Tell, Mircea Eliade
Mircea Eliade
Mircea Eliade was a Romanian historian of religion, fiction writer, philosopher, and professor at the University of Chicago. He was a leading interpreter of religious experience, who established paradigms in religious studies that persist to this day...
, Mircea Vulcănescu
Mircea Vulcanescu
Mircea Vulcănescu was a prominent Romanian philosopher, economist, ethics teacher and sociologist.-Biography:He studied philosophy and law at the University of Bucharest, graduating in 1925...
, and Petru Comarnescu
Petru Comarnescu
Petru Comarnescu was a Romanian literary and art critic and translator.Born in Iași into a family that was related to the metropolitan bishop Veniamin Costache, he studied at the University of Bucharest law , philosophy and philology before going in 1931 on a two-year scholarship to the United...
, he sat on the board of Criterion magazine (which claimed not to be linked with the former society). He contributed to Dreapta, a nationalist
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
magazine, but left it after the latter attacked Nicolae Iorga
Nicolae Iorga
Nicolae Iorga was a Romanian historian, politician, literary critic, memoirist, poet and playwright. Co-founder of the Democratic Nationalist Party , he served as a member of Parliament, President of the Deputies' Assembly and Senate, cabinet minister and briefly as Prime Minister...
, and cited a conflict in political opinions. By 1938, contrary to the prevalent choices of his generation, Stahl declared himself an anti-fascist
Anti-fascism
Anti-fascism is the opposition to fascist ideologies, groups and individuals, such as that of the resistance movements during World War II. The related term antifa derives from Antifaschismus, which is German for anti-fascism; it refers to individuals and groups on the left of the political...
.
After World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
and the onset of the communist regime
Communist Romania
Communist Romania was the period in Romanian history when that country was a Soviet-aligned communist state in the Eastern Bloc, with the dominant role of Romanian Communist Party enshrined in its successive constitutions...
, Stahl was involved in projects to revive the sociology field; he was successful only after 1960, when he began working on Miron Constantinescu
Miron Constantinescu
Miron Constantinescu was a Romanian communist politician, a leading member of the Romanian Communist Party , as well as a Marxist sociologist, historian, academic, and journalist...
's staff at the Romanian Academy
Romanian Academy
The Romanian Academy is a cultural forum founded in Bucharest, Romania, in 1866. It covers the scientific, artistic and literary domains. The academy has 181 acting members who are elected for life....
's Bibliotheca Historica Romaniae.
In 1990, he was elected a member of the Romanian Academy.
Works
- Tehnica monografiei sociologice (1934)
- Nerej, un village d'une région archaïque, 3 vols. (1939)
- Sociologia satului devălmaş românesc (1946)
- Contribuţii la studiul satelor devălmaşe româneşti, 3 vols. (1950-1965)
- Les anciennes communautés villageoises roumaines; asservissement et pénétration capitaliste (1966)
- Sociologia "concretă" şi istorie, in Teorie şi metodă în știinţele sociale, Vol. VII: Filozofia istoriei. Studii, Editura Politică, Bucarest (1969)
- Teoria şi practica investigărilor sociale, 2 vols. (1975)
- Traditional Romanian Village Communities: The Transition from the Communal to the Capitalist Mode of ProductionMode of productionIn the writings of Karl Marx and the Marxist theory of historical materialism, a mode of production is a specific combination of:...
in the DanubeDanubeThe Danube is a river in the Central Europe and the Europe's second longest river after the Volga. It is classified as an international waterway....
Region, Cambridge University PressCambridge University PressCambridge University Press is the publishing business of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by Henry VIII in 1534, it is the world's oldest publishing house, and the second largest university press in the world...
, 1979 - Teorii şi ipoteze privind sociologia orânduirii tributale, 1980
- Amintiri şi gânduri din vechea şcoală a monografiilor sociologice, 1981
- Eseuri critice. Despre cultura populară românească, 1983
- Dimitrie Gusti. Studii critice, 1986
- Probleme confuze în istoria socială a României, 1992
- Zoltán Rostás, Monografia ca utopie. Interviuri cu Henri H. Stahl (interviews), 2000