The Semitic, Anti-Semitic, Xenophobic Magazines

• Main Author: Cristina Dosuleanu
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Danubius University 2012-07-01
• Series: Acta Universitatis Danubius: Communicatio
• Subjects: Lower Danube; xenophobic press; anti - Semitic politics
• Online Access: http://journals.univ-danubius.ro/index.php/communicatio/article/view/1433/1201
• ISSN: 1844-7562; 2069-0398

The Lower Danube, an economic region par excellence in the late nineteenth and earlytwentieth century, is always an example for intercultural communication which has characterized thisarea for centuries to come. In the cities on the Danube, especially Braila and Galati, the understandingbetween ethnicities, who lived, worked and developed business activities, was proverbial. Hebrew,Greek, Armenian, Lippovans, Bulgarians, all lived in harmony with Romanians. However, theoccurred phenomena in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, when some historians considerthat Anti-Semitic and xenophobic politics became state politics, have reached this area as well for awhile, an area that seemed to be immune. It first appeared the Semitic magazines, which werestruggling to gain political rights for Hebrew or the establishment of Palestine, after that the anti-Semitic and xenophobic magazines, in the early twentieth century and then between 1920-1930, itoccurred as a reflex of the phenomena at nationallevel. In 1905 it was released the first xenophobicmagazine against the Greeks,Jos Asasinii/Off with the Assassins, urging the commercial strike andthe refuse to make any trade with the Greeks; then the Anti-Semitic was released in 1906, andRevistanaţiunei/The Nation Magazinein the same year. Several magazines were then published in theinterwar period. Interesting enough is that they did not last very much, being only momentaryoutbursts, previously softened, as the understanding between ethnicity and the insurance of prosperityhas proven to be stronger than the stereotypes promoted at national level.