Circulation and Versions of the Biography of Dimitrie Cantemir. From Paratext to Independent Text. A French – English – German – Romanian Route

This paper intends to present the way in which the biography of the Moldavian prince Dimitrie Cantemir entered the Romanian culture at the beginning of the 19^th century. Written in English, as an abridged version of a French prototext, the biographical text about Dimitrie Cantemir reached the Romanian culture through a German intermediary, the preface to the second German edition of Descriptio Moldaviae. Almost simultaneously it appeared in Romanian translation in two versions: as foreword to Scrisoarea Moldovei (1825) and as independent text, in the periodical Bibliotecă românească (1829). The purpose of this paper is to identify the circulation of the biographical text from French to English, German, and Romanian, with a focus on the textual changes along this route. Furthermore, this paper also concentrates on the versions of the biography, initially designed as afterword, then as foreword, and which also circulated as independent text in Romanian. The analysis of these versions focuses on the intentionality of each translation: a paratextual element with an informative scope, and an autonomous text, published in a periodical, whose purpose was the education of the Romanian readership, and the creation of a national identity.

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