Romanian Revolutionaries and Political Exile, 1840-1859

Brill, Balkan Studies Library; Hardback (xvi, 382 pp) March 2011, ISBN 978 90 04 18779 5. EUR 109 / $154

Angela Jianu explores the lives and activities of a group of Romanian revolutionaries exiled in Paris, London and the Middle East in the aftermath of the insurrections of 1848. Drawing largely on diaries, memoirs and private correspondence, A Circle of Friends is a social history of political exile, presenting the personal life dramas of the protagonists within the wider context of the European post-revolutionary turmoil of the 1850s. Exile and political repression allied this group not only to their Hungarian and Polish peers, but also to French republicans, English radicals and Italian freedom-fighters. Their story reveals the existence of transnational networks of left-wing, radical and republican movements in mid-nineteenth-century Europe against the background of nation-building projects in East-Central Europe.

Readership: All those interested in the history of East-Central Europe, the history of European liberalism and of the European left, as well as in Freemasonry, women’s history, political biography and transnational exilic experiences.

Angela Jianu has a PhD in history from the University of York (UK, 2004) and teaches modern European history at the Centre for Lifelong Learning (University of Warwick, UK).

The book can be ordered directly from the publisher’s website.