Reference Type: Book
Author: Tavitian, Simion
Year: 2004
Title: Armeni sub cupola Academiei Române
Translated Title: [Armenians under the Dome of the Romanian Academy]
City: Constanţa
Publisher: Ex Ponto
Number of Pages: 241
Language: Romanian
Keywords: Armenian minority, sociology, interdisciplinary, elites, modernization, biographies, politics, sciences, social groups, culture, ethnic identity, employment, education
Abstract: (En) The book Armenians under the Dome of the Romanian Academy underscores the role the elites have played in the modernization and development of the country; it brings into the foreground those professionals without whom our spiritual and material progress would be either endangered, or significantly slowed down. Each nation prides
in those figures whose intelligence seems expresses human creative potential at its highest value; eleven of those honored in the hemicycle of the Romanian Academy are of Armenian origin; their scientific biography, but also their social, political and cultural activity forms the
substance of this new book.
Why are there so few? Someone might rightfully ask. The remarkable initiative of the author leaves room not only for constructive reflection but it also constitutes a fertile provocation-personally, I am convinced that a new edition, revised and augmented, will soon follow, which will include other ‘immortals'. Since 1866, 1980 Romanians have been elected to the Academy. Further research by the author himself, or signals from readers, might prove that others have Armenian ancestry. Careful examination of 520 foreign members of the Romanian Academy might give us a more trustworthy image of the Armenian elite contribution to Romanian science and culture.
Only eleven Romanian immortals of Armenian origin? There have been so few because errors and subjective attitudes, or the injunction of politics have affected evaluation and strictly academic judgment (even today, the Romanian Academy persists in its unpardonable error of not honoring its own criteria of recognition, omitting to recuperate, even if, post mortem
, Gheorghe Asachi and Vasile Conta, two founders of our modern culture, both Armenians, not to mention many other brilliant professionals claiming Armenian ancestry -Marta Tancu Rainer, the first woman surgeon in Romania (in 1889), or Professor Iacob Melcon Iacobovic (1789-1959), the founder of the Romanian school of surgery in Transylvania, both founding members of the Romanian Academy of Medicine.
Only eleven "immortals" who exemplarily stood not only for their profession, some of them enjoying universal acknowledgment (Ana Aslan), but who also identified with the major social, political and cultural problems of the country, to which they entirely devoted themselves (Spiru Haret, Garabet Ibraileanu, or Virgil Madgearu). All these "immortals" rose above their existential matrix, above their national and cultural condition, to honestly promote Romanism avant la letter - without claiming the much debated multiculturalism of today. Some of them descend from crossbred families (such as Matei Socor, whose mother was Jewish), others started such families (the philosopher Dumitru Bagdasar, who married the Aromanian Florica Ciumetti (1901-1978), the first woman -minister in Romania, herself the daughter of one of the leaders of Balkan Romanism, Sterie Ciumetti, engineer. For the time being, there have been only eleven Romanian immortals of Armenian origins have walked under the dome of the Academy - the tip of the iceberg...

(Ro) Dacă în cartea sa anterioară Simion Tavitian s-a preocupat de o reiterare istorică privind Armenii dobrogeni în istoria şi civilizaţia românilor cu un conţinut de sinteză^ în care sunt relevate coordonatele generale ce conferă substanţă demersului respectiv , de astă dată prin faţa ochilor noştri se desfăşoară destinul doar al unora dintre consângenii săi/noştri anume, al acelora dintre ei cărora viaţa le-a încununat devenirea profesională aparte şi conduita umană superioară, recunoscându-le valoarea lor de excepţie; este vorba de atestarea la nivelul ştiinţific cel mai înalt, pe care o poate exprima o comunitate cultural-naţională respectiv, de membru al Academiei. Fără a se cultiva un partis-pris al rolului supraoamenilor, iese în evidenţă, însă, rolul elitelor în modernizarea şi propăşirea unei societăţi a acelor profesionişti fără de care progresul civilizaţiei umane, deopotrivă materiale şi spirituale, ar fi, dacă nu periclitat, neîndoios încetinit sau mai lent. Iată de ce, flecare etnie şi naţiune se mândresc cu figurile lor reprezentative, multe devenind personalităţi, cu aleşii lor nu politici, Doamne fereşte!..., acei fii graţie cărora inteligenţa umană se exprimă, peren, la cele mai înalte valori creative.