2796123970

n COMPTES RENDUS 769

preface we flnd a noble appeal, worth being ąuotcd here: “To define the contribution of the Sibian prlnting press to the Romnnian cultnrc ls, of couree, a dlfflcult task] for the present. Thls will only be possible after all prlnting centers In the country have managed to catalogue the whole typographic activity" (p. 12). Thls appeal mak es us thlnk of such centers as Blaj, Bra$ov, Tirgovi$te, Iaęi, Rlmnlcu VIlcea, a.o. and of how wonderful It would be if we had the clironological ca ta logu es of all these important prlnting and publishing centers. From Slblu, Elena Dundreanu promlses us another edltorial event for the next year, namely, The Catalogue of Old Romanian Books In Astra Llbraryl, p. 12 In the preface/. And we are en-tirely comrtnced that thls promise will be honoured, taking In to acconnt the whole actlylty of the author in the field so far.

Under its second aspect, Slblu Is as interesting and as important, both to the hlstory of Romanian culture and mainly to the history of German language culture. It ls wdl known that Slblu ls eąually an old prlnting and publishing center for books in German and due to the large concentratlon of German population on thls territory and the surroundlng arcas, a serles of cultural socleties and instltutlons were founded here dnrlng the Middle Ages, stand-ing for a German nucleus to which the formula “provincla! German culture" Is not appll-cable. We shall not mention all theforms of exprcssion and phenomena speciflc to the Trausyl-yanian German culture, but we shall only stress the fact that most of the prlntlng-publlshlng houses In Slblu were German all through the 16th—19th ccnturlcs and that Slblu has givcn a significant number of books In German. The large concentratlon of German lntelllgentsla — as far back as the Middle Ages (physlclans, chemlsts, teachers, prelates, hlstorlans, phllo-logists, architects, botanists, folklorlsts, ethnologlsts and even high polltical functionarlcs) has stlmulated the prlnting acthdty ln Słbiu by the publication of German authors from Slblu, but aiso from the whole Transylvanlan area. Also other forms of the written culture were numerous, these reąuiring a German collectlvity to support thelr exlstence: periodlcals and almanacs. A catalogue of Sibian periodlcals in German hns alrcady been written, as we have seen. Now, Mlrcea Avram sets forth a catalogue of almanacs printed and pubiished in Slblu, beglnning wlth 1612 when the author certifies the Issue of the first German almanac. Almanacs are a category of publlcatlons both for the Romanian population and for the German one and, for a long time, they have played a very Important role ln the evolut!on and mainly the dissemination of culture — under the form of books and current Information Issues. Mlrcea Avram^#s idea of analitlcaily registering absolutcly all German almanacs printed ln Slblu is not only eaccellent, but also of great use to the study of cultural history. The system of recording In the catalogue ls such that lt represents a first stage, sufficient ln Itself, for a comparativc research, mainly for the south-eastern European culture. The catalogue comprises 39 titles of almanacs in German, ln 517 coples — some of these almanacs having come out for decades, “almost up to one hundred years", between 1612 and 1930. The tltle and the whole Information are glven ln German and translated into Romanian. All the data are given ln connec-tlon wlth the tltle, year of publication, area of diffusion “Transylvania, Hungary and other neighbounng places", author, place of publication, prlnting press and edltor. The second secŁIon comprises the contents of the almanac. Thls suinmary is a treasure of documentatlon for many flelds of culture and history. Here are some examples: “On the Differences Between Planets", “Report on Towns, Countrlcs and KIngdoms", “The Chronicie of VarIous Happenings" (1684), “Report on Transylvanla's Boroughs, “The Course of Post Relays from Vienna through Buda up to Slblu", ^uStatus personalis of the Governmental Council". “On Ecllpses" “Poems", “Some of the Best and Most Useful Books Pubiished in Germany in the Years 1779 and 1780", “Short Stories", “From the Transylvanlan Mints", “The Natural Products of Transylvanla" “Outllne for a Topographlcal Description of Slblu, the Capital of the Transyl. vanlan Princlpallty", “A Short History of the Origln and the Destlny of TransyWanlan Saxons*\ “The Chronicie of the Native Prlnces of Transylyanla", “Countrles and Peoples: A Picture of Moldayia and Wallachia", “On Transylvanian Culture wlth Stress onCommerce" and others.

To the ahove-mentloned Idea of the catalogue — as an excellent Instrument of work for a comparatIve study, 1 would llke to make some morę remarks: 1. The type of the des-cribed almanac Is speciflc to the whole south-east of Europę ln the 18th and 19th centurles and is printed in Romanian, Bulgarian, Greek, Serblan and Albanian. 2. Due to the massive Bałkan emigration ln the Romanian countrles ln the 17th — 19th centurles, I would only mention the Greek, Bulgarian and Albanian ones, part of these almanacs, pubiished ln the respectlve languages, are printed and pubiished by the emigrant lntelllgentsla, ln Slblu or Bra$ov, Iaęl, Bucharest, Rlmnlcu-Vlicea — that Is the Romanian area where the German SIhian almanacs under dlscussion were also spread. These Greek, Bulgarian and Romanian almanacs are eąually present In the Transylyanlan area — the Romanian ones naturally being