page_title: Traian Herseni
section_title: Origins and schooling
hierarchical_section_title: Traian Herseni / Biography / Origins and schooling
caption_attribution_description: English: Team leaders of the Bucharest Sociological School, on a field trip to Drăguș. Traian Herseni is seated in the middle, second, row, facing the viewer; to his right, at the head of the table, Dimitrie Gusti. Henri H. Stahl is seated across from Herseni, facing right (face partly obscured); Xenia Costa-Foru is seated on his and Gusti's left.
context_page_description: Traian Herseni was a Romanian social scientist, journalist, and political figure. First noted as a favorite disciple of Dimitrie Gusti, he helped establish the Romanian school of rural sociology in the 1920s and early '30s, and took part in interdisciplinary study groups and field trips. A prolific essayist and researcher, he studied isolated human groups across the country, trying to define relations between sociology, ethnography, and cultural anthropology, with an underlying interest in sociological epistemology. He was particularly interested in the peasant cultures and pastoral society of the Făgăraș Mountains. Competing with Anton Golopenția for the role of Gusti's leading disciple, Herseni emerged as the winner in 1937; from 1932, he also held a teaching position at the University of Bucharest.
  Herseni became a committed eugenicist and racial scientist, who discarded a moderate left-wing stance to embrace fascism, and parted ways with Gusti over his support for the Iron Guard. He was nevertheless protected during the anti-Guard backlash of 1938, when Gusti made him a clerk within the Social Service, part of the National Renaissance Front apparatus.
context_section_description: Herseni was a native of Transylvania, which, for most of his childhood, was an Austro-Hungarian province. His home village was Iași (Jás), in what was then Brassó County (present-day Brașov County), where his father worked as a notary public. On his paternal side, Herseni originated from nearby Hârseni, which gave the family its name. Born on February 18, 1907, Herseni went to school in Iași (1912–1915) and Făgăraș (1915–1924). These years coincided with World War I and the recognition of Transylvania's union with Romania: Herseni began his secondary education in a Hungarian-speaking regimen, and passed his baccalaureate examination in 1924, as a Romanian national.
  From 1924, Herseni was a student at the University of Bucharest Faculty of Law, studying under Gusti, Constantin Rădulescu-Motru, Nicolae Iorga, Ovid Densusianu, and Vasile Pârvan. Passionate about Gusti's attempts to restructure Romanian social science around rural sociology and participant observation, Herseni was taken on board for Gusti's field trips to Nereju (1927) and Fundu Moldovei (1928). Another one of Gusti's students, Henri H. Stahl, first met and befriended him at Nereju, and was impressed by the encounter. Herseni, he writes, "appeared quiet, withdrawn; and yet not lonesome", "ready to take on whoever would oppose him, whether friend or rival". He grasped complex social issues with "rapidity", and "imposed himself as one of the team leaders, obtaining for himself a rank that he would never lose". Herseni was particularly involved in a project to collect data on "pastoral sociology", while Stanciu Stoian observed village schools and Xenia Costa-Foru pioneered studies in the sociology of the family.
  Herseni passed his final examination in 1928, having specialized in sociology, psychology, and pedagogy, and presenting a paper on social relations as observed in Fundu Moldovei. This qualified him to teach sociology at the Gheorghe Lazăr National College, where he worked for the following school year. In 1929, he went to Germany for more specialization. He enlisted at the Frederick William (Humboldt) University, where he heard lectures by Werner Sombart, Eduard Spranger, Richard Thurnwald, and Alfred Vierkandt. He published an overview of German sociology in Gusti's Arhiva pentru Știință și Reformă Socială, praising it as a "lively and freely-moving science", and as a good model for sociology in "the less advanced countries".
  Herseni returned to Bucharest in 1930, did his obligatory service in the Romanian Land Forces, then took part in expeditions, organized by Gusti's Romanian Social Institute (ISR), to Drăguș, Runcu, and Cornova. Drăguș, a center of the ethnographic region known as Țara Oltului, was selected on his insistence, being located in close proximity to his native village. At Cornova, Herseni focused on the social hierarchies and segregated clans of a Bessarabian community. He spent some time researching on his own at a sheepcote in the Făgăraș Mountains, publishing his results in Boabe de Grâu review. He also began contributing to the Cluj magazine Societatea de Mâine, with articles that inventoried and examined the various kinds of social distance.
caption: Herseni (seated, center, facing the viewer), with Dimitrie Gusti, Henri H. Stahl, Xenia Costa-Foru and other sociological team leaders. Drăguș, 1931
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