The Perils (and Promise) of German Colonization: Civilizational Hierarchies and Anxieties in Nineteenth-Century Romania.

This article examines nineteenth-century Romanian public discourse on "colony" and "colonization," revealing how anxieties about German expansionism were framed in explicitly colonial terms during Romania's nation-state formation. It traces how fears of German settler colonialism and economic takeover influenced legislative measures, including the 1866 Constitution's prohibition of colonization by "peoples of foreign race," despite the reign of the German-born King Carol I. Drawing on parliamentary debates, press, and economic literature, the study highlights how colonization was intertwined with concerns about capital, development, civilization, national identity, and state sovereignty, situating Romania within a spatial and temporal colonial continuum. The article also explores how infrastructural projects, such as railway concessions to German interests, intensified these colonial anxieties, which were often entangled with xenophobic and antisemitic rhetoric. Overall, it underscores the importance of historicizing Romanian actors' own conceptualizations of colonization beyond retrospective analytical frameworks.