Short stories
Nouvelles historiques de la Moldo-Roumanie
Not translated into English
Gheorghe Asachi · 1859
Synopsis
Tales drawn from the history of Moldavia, some based in part on the old chronicles, others invented. In Dragoș, Harboe, a chivalrous Tatar prince of the Cuman town of Romidava, loves Branda, daughter of a lord of Moesia promised to the hero of the title. Another tale follows the life of Ruxandra, daughter of Prince Vasile Lupu, wife of Tymofiy Khmelnytsky. The author places Gothic monuments and tournaments in this Moldavia, and gives the ancient princes rather implausible adventures.
Context
The first of these stories appeared in a journal, Ruxanda Doamna as early as 1841 in the Spicuitorul moldo-român. The collection was first published in French, in Iași, in 1859, at the Abeille press, with the note “translated from the Romanian”; a Romanian translation appeared in 1867, according to the Ion Creangă library in Chișinău. The critic Alexandru Piru notes in it an antiquated language and a medieval, chivalric and mythological subject matter, in romantic settings.
Who it is for
Historical and legendary tales in an archaizing language; the collection has existed in French since 1859.
Prizes and reception
Călinescu and Zarifopol saw in the author's best pages a foreshadowing of Eminescu's language.
Sources for this page 4
The pages consulted to check this page.