Recognition of Cultural Identity in Banat (1867-1918)

This paper investigates a time of high cultural intensity, namely, the modernizing of Romanian culture, and maybe even the first stage towards Western alignment. The complexity of the issues in question may also reside in the fact that the specific area of interest of this paper focuses on the Banat region and it “encounters” all the aspects caused by the need of Banat in those years to build a Romanian identity, amid a multi-ethnical space. It is a way in which the culture sheds the light on the linguistic aspects, while the linguistic investigation makes the cultural context relevant. The cultural and historical perspective involves the linguistic one, emphasizing the inter-disciplinary aspect of the exegesis. In the present research we are considering the following aspect: the spreading of culture through schools as a trigger of identity consciousness. Acknowledging Romanian language in elementary schools became an active means of recognizing cultural identity