Din istoria cărţii româneşti: culegerile de cântece naţionale şi de petrecere
Pages from the History of Romanian Books – The Collections of National Folk and Earthly Songs

old book

Summary/Abstract: The work deals with the history of Romanian book and emphasizes a large number of anthologies published in the second half of the 19th century. Some of them appeared at Bucureşti and Iaşi; others were published in Transylvania.The first collection of “earthly poems” is considered to be Cântece câmpeneşti cu glasuri româneşti, published at Cluj-Napoca in 1768 by using the Hungarian ortographic rules; the author is not known. It was followed by Pustia dragostei (1786), a collection printed at Sibiu and then an anthology published probably at Buda, arround 1800; it consists in no more than 7 poems witen in Cyrillic alphabet.Noua mică poezie can no longer be seen in Romanian librairies, but we may admire it at Buda; it includes sentimental and folk songs drawn together by G. Theodorescu. Anton Pann’ s anthology Poezii populare is also very important; it was published at Bucureşti in 1846.At Biblioteca Centrală Universitară from Cluj-Napoca the readers have the chance to admire a very special anthology. Its importance consists not only in its age, but also in the notes from its pages. It is about Dorul, an anthology that contains sentimental and folk songs allong with some classical poems, some characteristics that we may also find in other books, such as Cele mai frumoase cântece şi poezii, published by H. Steinberg in 1886 at Bucureşti. The songs included in this collection used to be sung all the time at familly or youthful meetings.The collections published in Transylvania had a patriotical aspect. We may mention, from this point of view, the anthology realised by Ioan Dorin, that includes 117 historical and patriotic songs and poems; it is called Arion sau Culegere de cânturi naţionale spre întrebuinţarea tinerimei de ambe sexe. At his turn, Ion Pop Reteganul publishes the anthology called Inimioara adecă floarea poesiei naţionale din cei mai buni scriitori români în uzul tinerimei române (Sibiu, 1885).All these collections realised during the second part of the 19th century had a very important place in the development of our literature.

• Details
• Contents