Virgil Cândea, Mărturii româneşti peste hotare

EDITOR’S NOTEAlthough in the initial plan of the new edition of Romanian TracesAbroad a larger number of chapters were anticipated for volume II, the extentof the chapter on Greece required a limitation of the contents to five countriesonly: Finland, France, Georgia, Germany and Greece. As in volume I of theNew series, the present work comprises the notes published in volumes Iand II of the first edition (Ed. Enciclopedica, Bucharest, 1991 and 1998,respectively), as well as the additions and corrections in volume II.Alongside important data concerning the Romanian cultural presencein countries that are close geographically or only spiritually, when browsingthrough this second volume of the work conceived by Virgil Cândea thereader will notice that there are many research topics that still wait theirchance to grasp the attention of the Romanian scientific community,from neglected works by Demetrius Cantemir, preserved at BibliothèqueNationale de France (Paris), to collections of documents belonging toGreek libraries, whose contents unmistakably reflect the strong ties of theRomanian Principalities with the Byzantine world. Attentive readers willalso note that, quite often, references only mention verbal communicationsfrom persons who saw the relevant items: the present work also has themission to encourage the appropriate study of such items, created owing tothe Romanians’ mind and artistic sensibility, in order that descriptions anddetailed surveys are published in the near future.Beside the complete revision of volume II, Andrei Pippidi added alarge number of notes to the chapters on France, Germany and Greece.The recording of many items in this volume was possible owing to his kindagreement to provide to the author, several decades back, and nowadays tothe work-team formed at the Institute for South-East European Studies, theresults of his relentless researches in foreign archives and libraries.Andrei Timotin contributed effectively to the improvement and additionof the notes in volume II, also searching recent issues of the periodicals thatwere selected by Virgil Cândea for inclusion in the present work, as well asa large number of volumes issued after the publication of the first edition.