The history of sexuality is a relatively new topic in the historical research – with an intense proliferation within the past decades –, mostly after the publication of an important paper, in fact the theoretical foundation for this research field (Michel Foucault, Histoire de la sexualité, I, Paris, 1976). Either the ideas expressed by Foucault have stimulated the researchers’ interest for the study of sexuality from a social and cultural perspective, or they have determined criticisms and conceptual repositioning. In both cases, they have led to a significant broadening of the research horizon and to a richer themed discourse. Considering the social phenomenon approach, the history of sexuality overlaps historical demography; there is a relationship between the history of medicine and that of family. In addition, through the cultural dimension, the history of sexuality overlaps the history of literature, the hagiology, historiography and history of art. The impressive bibliography reflects the importance that historians gave to the subject and, also, by apparition, since 1990, a thematic journal (Journal of the History of Sexuality, published by University of Texas Press). All recent scholarship having as subject the sexuality acknowledges the basic hermeneutic principle that the history of sexuality has been governed by ideologies that construct the category of sexuality itself. The – mainly – cultural approach on studying the evolution of sexuality represents an important research subject, able to provide answers to certain issues of the contemporary society. This is possible mostly by underlying the continuity and rupture elements between modernity and the traditional Christian society. Many studies have stressed on the link between Christian thinking and sexuality, as the Church was the first institution to offer a discourse on sex. It went on being associated with the temporal power; in the modern era, it disseminated in the modern rational discourses (psychoanalysis, sexology, family planning, etc). A recent tendency in studying the history of sexuality accentuates the importance of regional particularities in the detriment of a monolithic approach. The gender and sexuality are cultural constructs that require the study of ideas, laws, and institutions of the society, as well as of ethnic, geographic, and political characteristics that determine specific cultural identities.
As for the history of sexuality and the political–religious discourse, the Romanian historical research has been showing a deficit. The isolation during the Communist regime led to a complete break from the Occidental historical research, rejecting even the research themes with a strong influence from Marxist thinking. The few studies with a tangential view on the history of sexuality within this period were possible because of the overlap with the history of literature. Tight-laced by the old and rigid concepts of the militant nationalism, the Romanian historiography had a slow evolution after the fall of the Communist regime, thus perpetuating the disinterest of the previous period. Inevitably, after 1990, when the Romanian historiography came out of isolation, subjects previously seen as marginal or lacking relevance could be approached. The contact with “the new history” – promoted by the Annales School – and with the German-inspired law anthropology made many authors pay attention, in their social history studies, to aspects related to the history of sexuality, too. We remind here the chapter Viaţa între Eros şi Agape, dedicated by Ştefan Lemny, in his essay on the cultural history of the Romanian space in the 18th century (Ştefan Lemny, Sensibilitate şi istorie în secolul XVIII românesc, Bucharest, 1990). This chapter represented an attempt to anticipate the transformation of the discourse on sexuality within the Romanian space, as there were no studies on the subject. In the past decade, there have been more and more studies approaching aspects of the sexuality in the Romanian pre-modern society. They belong to the history of family, to historical demography, to imagology, and to the history of sexuality.
The studies are only the beginning of a historiography project – on a very vast research field – but with potential spectacular results. They have only emphasized on the rich potential of the sources yet to be explored. The research is definitely not an easy one, in the absence of a theoretical foundation for the sexuality in the Romanian space and because it is hard to identify the sources. Most documents necessary to study the sexuality of the Romanian pre-modern society are not published, and one must have thorough knowledge on paleography and archive funds to identify them. The research team of the project proposed meets the two requirements, as it comprises researchers with preoccupations for the history of sexuality, also known for their quality of document editors. The general research field of the theme proposed is characterized – mostly in the West-European historiography – by an ever growing and fast expansion. Nonetheless, its echoes are still weak in the Romanian historiography, because the theme is highly complex. This justifies the exploration proposed by this project.
