political; cultural; social;

The aftermath of World War I saw drastic:

change across Europe, Asia, Africa, and even in areas outside those that were directly involved in the war.

empires collapsed due to the war, old countries were abolished,

new ones formed, boundaries were redrawn, international organizations were established, and many new and old ideologies took a firm hold in people's minds.

In the period between the two World Wars Romanian intellectuals of the most diverse ideological commitments engaged in spirited polemics about the course of development their country should follow.
With the Great War and the struggle for political unification behind them and with the task of organizing the new Romania immediately ahead they were compelled to re-examine old values and seek new definitions of national character.

The former treated Romania as a part of Europe and insisted that she had no other choice but to follow the path of economic and social development already taken by the urbanized and industrialized West.

THE EUROPEANISTS

The Europeanists, consider the West's attainment of economic advantage as having been the result of fundamental social advantages, generally institutional or cultural. This included:
limited power of the state; respect for property rights; the spirit of individuality; positive attitudes; toward wealth accumulation; separation of scientific and technical advances from religious control.

Two figures stand out: the literary critic Eugen Lovinescu and the economist and sociologist Stefan Zeletin.

Stefan Zeletin

Eugen Lovinescu

THE TRADITIONALISTS

Opposed to the Europeanists were groups and individual who sought models for Romanias development in the native past, real or imagined. Traditionalist accurately describes them, but they were by no means unanimous about what constituted the Romanian tradition.

In general, they shared a belief in the predominantly rural character of Romanian historical development and staunchly opposed inorganic cultural and institutional imports from the West.

Those who had adopted the method were:

Nichifor Crainic

Lucian Blaga

Nae Ionescu

The Third Way

Between the two World Wars the Peasantists (rniti from ran, peasant) were the most consistent and effective advocates of a Romania

They were convinced of the uniqueness of Romanias historical evolution, which they attributed to an agricultural system rooted in the independent family holding.

Their aim throughout the inter-war period was thus to strengthen this nucleus of agricultural production, which they made the foundation of Romanias future social and political development.
They did not deny that capitalism was possible in Romania and even recognized that modern industry had come to stay and could benefit agriculture.

But they wanted to exclude capitalism from the organization of agriculture because they thought it incompatible with the character of Romanian agriculture as it had developed over the centuries.

They were certain that capitalism and everything which came in its wake would destroy what was exceptional and genuine in the Romanian way of life.

Conclusions
Among these theoretical contributions to the development debate in the first decades of the Twentieth century, agrarianism undoubtedly has its own position. The passion with which the Romanians have argued these various views for the last half century derives from the urgency of the very difficult problem of adjustment to modern Western society as well as from the fact that the sides taken in the dispute often reflected the social and economic interests of their proponents.