Tudor Vladimirescu and the Balkan Emancipation Movements

This volume, which brings together a selection of papers presented at an international conference marking the bicentennial of the 1821 uprising in Wallachia and the Etairia movement in Moldavia, is situated at the intersection of established and emerging historiographical trends. The events triggered by the uprising led by Tudor Vladimirescu and the Etairia movement — traditionally associated with the concept of revolution, but more recently interpreted as a secessionist movement of the Balkan Orthodox peoples from the Ottoman Empire — have been characterized as an ‘epoch threshold’. Originally conceptualized by the German philosopher Hans Blumenberg, the notion of an ‘epochal threshold’ refers to a significant marker of an almost imperceptible transition between two historical eras. This concept provides a productive framework for a substantive debate, one that seeks to move beyond entrenched historiographical stereotypes.The fifteen studies included in this volume operate within this thematic and methodological horizon. They aim to analyze the cultural and political transformations of the period, offering new insights by examining the discursive practices and forms of solidarity that defined this transitional era.