Nous, les autres

In accordance with Louis Dumont’s distinction between individualistic ideology typical of modem societies and holistic ideology which characterises rather non-modern societies, this article tries to analyse the hazards of Roumania’s identitary construction during its evolution towards modernity. The Roumanian rural society, strongly grouped in communities, « holistic » and « non-modern », bases its identitary activities mostly on spatial criterias, of local and neighbouring origins. The temporal (historical) dimension of the identity develops parallel to the destructuration of the archaic village community ; it essentially consists of a mythification through legends of the hero eponym of ancient local roots. The imperative of being independent from the Empires surrounding the Roumanian states was the reason for the nation-state’s passage to modernity and for the complementary inventiveness of the people. The means by wich this evolution took place had been chosen rather in the Herderian ideology. Hence, that is how national identity was created, by the simultaneous and complementary evolution of traditionality and modernity. The ethnological focuses of traditionality factors in stake in this double evolution, which is guided by forces defining the Roumanian culture