About this book
Another unknown of the Romanian culture, unknown to readers, but also to eminescuologists or francophones, was Petre Ciureanu. A professor and a scientific activity banned and thus lost to Romanian culture. Former scholar of the Romanian School in Rome, Italianist, together with other colleagues who had improved in Rome or Venice, after 1948, Petre Ciureanu remained in Italy. Professor of French at the University of Genoa, author of several volumes about French writers or the relationship between French and Italian literature, translator, Petre Ciureanu lived in exile not separated from Romanian culture. It is demonstrated by this volume entirely dedicated to Eminescu, written in Italian (in 1946) and intended, therefore, for those from his adopted homeland. The Romanian version appears for the first time now, 77 years after the Italian edition. It is the merit of the Aius Publishing House and the translator Carmen Teodora Făgețeanu. Mihaela Albu In the fifties of the last century, Ciureanu, after a stay in Paris as an exile from the land that became communist, had arrived in Genoa and received the position of professor of French at the Faculty of Economics. Later, he received the position of professor of French language and literature at the Faculty of Letters. I was then in my fourth and last year of studies. I remember the new teacher's lessons on a rather obscure topic of early 19th century French writers. The fact that he was an exile aroused not only my interest but sympathy. That's why I started visiting him outside of class, when he told me about his past as a young Romanian from an honorable family, about the sad years of his Parisian exile, about how he left his mother in his homeland. But I spoke, above all, about the Romanian language and culture... George De Piaggi Leaving aside the comparative studies of Ciureanu's French, Italian and Romanian cultures, but certainly his name and work will not be forgotten by scholars and his great activity cannot be ignored. Just before the end of his life, you could find him involved in a study, for the year 1994, about François Quesnay, three hundred years after the economist's birth. Osvaldo Chiareno
