44 Facts About Dan Simonescu

Dan Simonescu's debut was in his late teens, when he accompanied Constantin Radulescu-Codin during fieldwork in Muscel County, publishing his first contributions in the field of Romanian folklore.

Simonescu joined an editorial team headed by senior scholars Ioan Bianu and Nicolae Cartojan, and, in the 1930s and 1940s, became a major contributor to the collection and publication of old Romanian literature; he was Cartojan's disciple, though the two disagreed on a parallel project, namely the publication of Mihail Kogalniceanu's collected works, with Simonescu favoring, and eventually putting out, a topical selection of Kogalniceanu's social-themed essays.

Dan Simonescu became marginalized during the early stages of Romanian communism: sent to do work at the Nicolae Iorga Institute of History and the Technical School for Librarians, he was involved in the technical aspects of bibliographic work.

Dan Simonescu is widely seen as responsible for the definitive Kogalniceanu edition, while contributing studies of ancient literature, including romances and rhyming chronicles, with additional returns to both bibliography and folkloristics.

Dan Simonescu was additionally instrumental in the rediscovery of historical writings by Balthasar Walther, though criticized for allowing communist censors to remove a fragment referencing Michael the Brave's antisemitism.

Dan Simonescu Simon was born on December 11,1902, in Campulung, which was back then the seat of local government for Muscel, in the Kingdom of Romania.

Dan Simonescu later referred to this period, which lasted down to the creation of Greater Romania in 1918, as one of wanton destruction.

Dan Simonescu was initially drawn by classical scholarship, in the same class as Alexandru Graur, but was put off by professor Dumitru Evolceanu, whose teaching methods he regarded as superficial; he was instead impressed by Iuliu Valaori, who introduced him to Latin literature.

Ursu, dates Dan Simonescu's writing debut to 1923, noting his "unrelenting passion for books".

Dan Simonescu sometimes alternated it with a pen name, Simon Danescu.

Dan Simonescu rediscovered a collection of primary sources on Campulung's history, attributing it to the clerk Dumitru I Bajan.

Dan Simonescu's first published volume was the 1926 Incercari istorico-literare.

Also in 1926, Dan Simonescu arranged for print the late Radulescu-Codin's final manuscript, a monograph of Campulung.

Dan Simonescu replaced Nicolae Cartojan, who had been advanced to lecturer, and was originally a substitute for Iorga.

Dan Simonescu was later accepted as a provisional and permanent assistant; from 1931, he was a librarian at the Romanian Academy collections and the manuscript section of the Central University Library.

Historian Emil Lazarescu took a reserved view, noting that Dan Simonescu had failed to reveal some of his sources, and that the paper contained too few direct citations from Georgiakis.

Dan Simonescu believed that the work was rather a "point of departure" for later investigations.

Dan Simonescu functioned instead as a substitute professor at the Letters and Philosophy Faculty of Iasi University, but no longer employed by the Central Library after 1942.

Dan Simonescu was the first expert to investigate the collection of Romanian manuscripts that scholar Moses Gaster had bequeathed to the academy, publishing his results in a 1940 issue of Viata Romineasca.

Dan Simonescu was the sole editor of an addendum to Bibliografia romaneasca veche.

The book was completed under duress, with Dan Simonescu showing up for work at the academy throughout the air raids on Bucharest; though commended for the effort, he was criticized by classical scholar Nestor Camariano for not including a number of works, such as Rigas Feraios' maps of the Principalities.

In February 1945, Dan Simonescu was lecturing at the newly formed Romanian Society for Friendship with the Soviet Union of Bucharest, discussing Dimitrie Cantemir's activity in the Russian Empire.

Dan Simonescu continued to publish articles, including, in 1946, one detailing the spread of Baltasar Gracian's El Criticon in 18th-century Moldavia.

Dan Simonescu was elected a regional delegate of the Democratic Students' Front, and, at a congress held on June 18,1946, joined the national executive board of the Union of Teachers' Syndicates.

Dan Simonescu was moved to Iasi University Philology Section where, in February 1949, he and Alexandru Dima established a study circle which took inspiration from Soviet historiography.

Dan Simonescu made returns to his native area, and in 1953 stayed with teacher Vasile Marin at Musatesti.

Dan Simonescu was chief scientific researcher at the Nicolae Iorga Institute of History from 1952 or 1953.

In 1955, Dan Simonescu curated Kogalniceanu's selected works for the Biblioteca pentru toti collection, with a preface which depicted the author "as a thinker of progressive outlook, who never went down the reactionary path taken by the bourgeoisie".

Dan Simonescu edited an edition of Kogalniceanu's literary essays and articles, which came out in 1956 as Despre literatura.

Also according to Ghetie, Dan Simonescu was poorly familiarized with historical grammar, and "seems to confuse literary language with the Muntenian dialect".

Dan Simonescu made another celebrated return in 1960, when he described the late-16th-century chronicle of Balthasar Walther, a hitherto ignored historical source on the reign of Michael the Brave.

Dan Simonescu was again becoming noted for his dedication in researching old Romanian literature, including for his 1966 overview of literary contributions by Anthim the Iberian and his 1967 work in French, for the Studia et Acta Orientalia, constituting an overview of Arabic and Karamanli books issued in Wallachia.

Dan Simonescu kept in touch with the Romanian-born Eric Tappe, who headed the UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies in England.

Dan Simonescu reported that the year 1963, with its "professional and didactic necessities", had forced him to prioritize "bibliological science", which he viewed as a companion to literary history.

In that context, Dan Simonescu was researching the work of a Greek chronicler, Matthew of Myra, as read through its Romanian translation.

From 1965, Dan Simonescu was welcomed into the Writers' Union of Romania, a member of its Literary History and Critique Section.

Dan Simonescu was focusing his attention on the Western European manuscripts preserved by the Batthyaneum of Alba Iulia, which he precisely dated.

The first book of its kind in Romania, it was followed by Dan Simonescu's similarly pioneering biblioteconomy textbooks for high school.

In 1980, Dan Simonescu put out a complete bibliography of Cartojan's scholarship.

Dan Simonescu was additionally a contributor to Manuscriptum journal, where, in early 1983, he defended his 1940s Bibliografia in a polemic with fellow scholar Paul Cornea.

Dan Simonescu declared his disappointment that, rather than being reprinted in Romania, this work had been reissued by a "famous American publishing house", and from Liechtenstein; he urged the authorities to invest more resources in the literary education of Romania's high-school students.

Dan Simonescu was involved with editing a Kogalniceanu reader for schoolchildren, which came out at Editura Albatros in 1987.

Dan Simonescu was at the time living in Bucharest, but corresponding with his various pupils and disciples.

Dan Simonescu was still regularly writing at the time, and had prepared for print a paper on Ovid Densusianu; as argued by Anghelescu, his work in comparative literature had reached its peak with additional studies on 18th- and 19th-century translators, from John Caradja to Cezar Bolliac, as well as with his opening up discussions about Western influences on 17th-century Romanian culture.