Două gramatici ale limbii române destinate şcolii basarabene în 1918
Two Romanian Language Grammar Books for the Bessarabian school in 1918

Summary/Abstract: The Bessarabian school – for more than one century – was totally under the influence of the Russian imperial school. The first demand of the Moldovans – after the events that occurred in the Russian Empire in early 1917 – was the nationalization of learning in all primary schools. However, for the creation of a national school, new manuals were necessary. The didactic literature in 19th-century Bessarabia was largely a religious literature destined mainly to parochial schools. Actually, most of the well-known Bessarabian bucoavne (primers) were bilingual editions, with a parallel text (on two columns) in Russian/Slavonic and Romanian. The Romanian text was a translated (adapted) version from Russian, which also indicates directly the source of the original: the Russian bucoavne drafted up in the first half of the 19th century were approved by synod censorship. In the fall of 1917, the School section attached to the gubernial Zemstva managed to publish the first Romanian manuals for Bessarabian schools: The Primer of Father Gurie, The Reading Book of Ştefan Ciobanu and The Godly Law Book of Father Vlad. With help from the Bessarabian school, in 1918, two Romanian grammar books edited in Bucharest and Iaşi were published: the first one penned by the famous Petre V. Haneş, Moldovian Grammar (Iaşi 1918), and the second drafted up by the Bessarabian Axente Frunză, Romanian Grammar (Bucharest, 1918) – this was his contribution to the great changes occurring in the life of Bessarabians.

• Details
• Contents