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644 UN DEBAT : LES MENTALITfiS COLLECTlVES 14

outstanding authors of the humanist generation.⁴² This process reaches its peak in 18th century historiography, in the chronicles of the boyars_r in the chronicles written at the reąuest of the Phanariot rulers or in the attempts to write parallel histories of the Romanian lands. The copyists, compilers or anonymous chroniclers of that time, freely manifested their habits derived from orał culture, unhindered by the old rigors of the “chronicie” species, which was then begiuning to branch out into hihtorical literaturę and the history book.

To this type of culture also belonged those who through Greek inter-mediaries or directly from French were bcginning to transLate — in mid-18th century — specific Western writings. During this process of reception, the Ronianian translators, copyists and readers applied to works Mich as Les Aventnres de TĆlfanaąue by Fćnolon, the refined and eradite writer, tlie same existential rćgime of the popular book.⁴³

Other translations of that time had tlie same fate and even the “original” writings, particularly rerses were gathcred in. copy-boolo or “condicu^e”.

The attitude towards the rehgious works was determined by their specific traits. Hagiographic works were transmitted in one way, the versified Paalms of Dosoftei in another (fragments of tliem became Christ-mas Carols); the Tciraranghcls or other works where, throughout a text in prose and a rigorous “misę en scćne” with strict “stage directions’% versified fragments appear from time to time, were again diffcrently transmitted.

From the copies of Viafa lui Nifon (Nifon’s Life), we understand that neither the scribes nor the readers mistook a liistoriographic narra-tive for a hagiographic naiTative. The works of Gavril Protos, translated into Romanian by mid-18th century, have been preserved in rnanu-scripts, either as an independent work, or included into the body of Wal-lachian Chronicles. The variations which appeared in tlie text accepted as “biography”, are smali (we are referring to the copies of the same translations and not to those orjginating from different sources).⁴⁴ But as part of Letopiseful Ccmtacuzinesc, Viafa lui Nifon is classified among the fragments containing epic units with the most numerous variants. The be-ginning of the writing, when Gavril Protul reports the events which are not related to Wallachia, is eliminated; there is no fixed point, howerer_T joining it to the old chronicie, but an entire zonę, the copyists stopping at one or another sentence. Since the passage about the same period, derived from the Analele 8lavone (Slavonic Annals) was preserved, the interfe-renees with these or other sources of information are but natural. The description of Curtea de Argeę monastery given many decades later by

⁴²    One of the historiographical writings which has bccn rarcly altercd although sevcra! times copied. is Istoria T&rii Homóneęti by Stolnic Constantin Cantacuzino.

⁴³    Al. Du^u, Coordonate ale culturii rom&nefli In secolul XVlII-lea (1700—1821)„ Bucureęti, 1968; Ilcana Virtosu, Istoria unel córfi: “ Intlmpl&rllc lui Telemac” de Fen don ęl circulafia el pe ierltorlul rom&ncsc In secolul al XVIU-lea, RITL, 1979, No. 3, 365—379.

⁴⁴    Rodica ęuiu, Viafa palrlarhului Nifon in Diet- /*/. rom. — generał presentation and bibliography — to which we add Pompiliu Teodor, DouA manuscrise copiate pentru biblioteca lui ętefan Cantacuzino, “Anuarul Institutului dc istorie din Cluj”, 1962, p. 229—232, with the correction of Dan Zamfirescu, Neagoe liasarab..., Bucureęti, 1973, p. 361.