Les itinéraires transnationaux d'un intellectuel européen: Lazare Sainéan, Lazăr Șăineanu, Eliazar Șăin

Lazăr Șăineanu (1859–1934) was a Jewish-born scholar whose early works contributed to the development of Romanian linguistics, philology, and folklore studies. Because the Romanian law of the time denied him and all people of Jewish descent Romanian citizenship, precluding thus any possibility of an academic career, he was forced to seek exile in France and change his research field. The main issues addressed in this paper are Șăineanu’s double identity as a Jew-Romanian, his status as a Romanian exile in France, and the multilinguistic and multidisciplinary quality of his intellectual production because they could hold the key to understanding why the author did not find an adequate critical response either in Romania or in France. The national and monocultural approach was the main trend in the humanities at that time and the posthumous monocultural criticism only widened the gap between his Romanian and French works, ignoring the elements of continuity present in his research. As a result, Șăineanu ended up being relegated to a secondary position in both cultures. This paper aims to show how a transnational perspective can enhance the relevance of his scholarly activity and open new perspectives about this complex, elusive, and truly European intellectual.