The study reviews the main issues surrounding Slovakian-language education in the second half of the long nineteenth century. The brief history of the institutional framework explains the initial boom of primary education (parish and village schools), followed by a dramatic decrease in their numbers in the Age of Dualism and a decade-long strife for Slovakian secondary education. The story continues with the birth of the first secondary schools in the 1850s and 1860s (benefitting from the policies of Absolutism), their eventual governmentled discontinuation in 1874–75, and the subsequent efforts to either reinstate them or substitute them with Czech and Moravian schools and trade schools. The study examines the role of the church, government and ethnic politics in the overall negative balance of these processes, and at the same time provides insight into the internal limitations of the Slovak stakeholders: mass apathy and opportunism, preference for Hungarian-language schools, teachers with no dedication (providing poor teaching, money-oriented attitudes, alcoholism), and active dedicated teachers with problems of attitude, such as intolerance, doctrinaire outlook, complete disregard of local circumstances, or looking down on the peasantry. Further nuancing the picture, the study goes on to describe the ambiguous role of the Czech elite, especially the treatment of Slovakian as an independent literary language with disdain and enforcing Czechoslovakism, which was to severely impede the building of Slovakian-language education system after 1918. In conclusion, the study points out the fundamental paradox that while the elite considered Slovakian-language schools, and primary and secondary school teachers, as principal means of nation building, the solidification of the institutions and teachers’ situation was thought to be the duty of the same (assumed) society and nation.

The study deals with the embourgeoisement of Romanians living in Transylvania between the 1860s and the First World War, a process characterised by the rising of a new elite who chose pragmatic careers (doctors, lawyers, bank employees) and usually acquired land estates as well. The author examines how these professionals pursued the idea (and a rather utopian one at that) of an independent national economy that would develop through its own efforts. This they imagined to achieve by simulating the modernization of their Saxon compatriots, but maintaining the least contact possible with the Establishment, which they considered oppressive and predominantly ethnic Hungarian. The author makes use of magazine articles (mainly from Familia, Revista Orăştiei and Revista Economică ), public lectures, and pamphlets, which all suggest that it is possible to build a modern civilized society without a strong manufacturing industry. They maintain that this can happen exclusively through cooperation and solidarity (saving banks, rural co-operatives). The proposed way to achieve their goals also include the revival of handicrafts, which allows villagers to make money in the winter, commercial banks, individual and common foundations, as well as well-equipped schools, which emphasise the importance of a national spirit and teach practical agricultural and industrial skills in Romanian, and so on. Following the overview of the shortcomings and strategies of agriculture, domestic industry, commerce and finance, the study is concluded with special chapters on the role of comprehensive national exhibitions and general propaganda in creating a virtual Romanian community of consumption, financial affairs, legal and health services.

The essay presents opinions and programs treating questions of fashion and folk clothing that appeared in authoritative Romanian press products in Hungary in the second half of the nineteenth century. Authors cited regard peasant clothing an important element of national identity on the one hand, on the other they ascribe a subversive effect to the effort of the small and less affluent Romanian middle class to keep pace, even beyond their means, with German and Hungarian families in questions of clothing. Even greater danger seemed to be the fact that peasants in several regions began to buy ready-to-wear clothes or make their clothes of manufactured textile, which quickly made them run into debt. Finally, authors expected women of the elite to set a good example to the peasantry by appearing at national balls and gatherings in folk costumes.