Project description:

The projects intends to show the impact of the Western European Culture from the Enlightenment period on the Romanian Culture, as evidentiated in the translations from the 18th century.

The general objectives of the project are as follows: 1. Identification of all philological data regarding the texts intended for analysis: the identification of the translation sources (Western originals and, eventually, intermediate Greek or Russian versions), the relations with the original text, the sources of western writers who authored the translated text, the identification of the Romanian writer if he is not known. 2. The traductological analysis of the texts, taking into account the relation between the source-language and the target-language, textological comparisons, linguistic influences; 3. The description of the Romanian translations, the analysis of the ideas presented in the texts, of its aesthetic meaning.; 4. The preparation of at least one philological edition of one of these texts.

In order to accomplish the objectives, 6 texts were selected, based on their representativity for the circulation of Western writings in the Romanian provinces, as their analysis can be extended to the entire phenomenon. The six texts are:

1. Geography anatomized or Geographical Grammar by Patrick Gordon, ed. I, London, 1685, had several translations and elaborations in France. One of the French versions was translated into Italian (Geografia moderna), then into Greek by Gheorghios Fatzeas (Gramatikí geografikí), which he published in Venice in 1760, in three volumes. The Romanian version belongs to the clergyman Gherasim Putneanul and is preserved in copies from 1780 and 1789 (ms. 2349BAR, ms. 121 State Archives of Iaşi, ms. 6 Bishopric Library of the city of Roman), with the title Gheografie noo.

2. The Provencal chivalry novel Paris et Vienne was adapted by the Italian Angelo Albani Orvietano with the title Innamoramento di due fidelissimi amanti, published in Rome, in 1626. Vincenzo Kornaros transferred the action from the Western to the Greek setting, under the name Erotokritos, and his poem was published for the first time in Venice in 1713. From the Greek version, there are two different translations into Romanian: the first was made in Moldavia, in prose, by an anonymous translator and was preserved in manuscript copies in ms. 158BAR from 1785 and ms. 145BAR from 1800; the second translation, in prose with verses, from Walachia, was attributed to Alecu Văcărescu and is preserved in several manuscript copies, compilations and elaborations, the most significant being ms. 3454BAR from 1787 and ms. 1319BAR from 1789; from the text of Kornaros there remained Petrarch influences, taken over in his verses by Văcărescu, so that the beginnings of the Romanian modern poetry were influenced by Petrarch’s lyrics.

3. Voltaire’s writing, Histoire de Charles XII, roi de Suède, was translated into Romanian by the Moldavian clergyman Gherasim, with the title Istorie craiului Sfeziei Carol 12, and is preserved into an autograph copy from 1792 at Central University Library in Iasi, nr. IV-54, and in copies made by other copyists: nr. 4619BAR, of 1805, and nr. 81 Putna Monastery Library, of 1821.

4. The drama by Petro Metastasio, Achille in Sciro, was translated through a Greek intermediary by the Walachian nobleman Iordache Slătineanu and published in Sibiu, in 1797, with the title Ahilefs la Schiro.

5. The Italian writer Giulio Cesare Croce della Lira wrote the book Le sottilissime astuzie di Bertoldo, at the end of the 16th century. The text, in a short form, was published in German in Berlin in 1778, with the title Leben Bertoldo’s, seines Sohnes Bertoldino, und seines Enkels Kakaseno. The German version was translated into Romanian by Ioan Molnar, with the title Viaţa Lui Bertoldo şi a lui Bertoldino, feciorul lui, dimpreună şi a lui Cacasino, nepotul lui, published in Sibiu, in 1799.

6. Claude François Xavier Millot, published in France in 1772 the work Elements d’histoire générale ancienne et moderne, which was translated with the title Istorie universală adecă de obşte, 1st tome, by Ioan Molnar, Buda, 1800, after a German version and the French original.