2796124072

646

BN DEBAT : ŁOStS MENTAZtfTES pOIAJBCTIYSS

perpetuated on different social levels the popular mentality bo that the presence of the folklore in the writings of the famous authors of the time ■was not imposed on them by a new theory.

When, a few decades later, Mihai EmineBCu gathered the old manu-scripts (which Moses Gaster later used in the elaboration of his works), he had an intuition of the deci8ive importance of these manuseriptB — and through them of the popular mentality — in the formation of the modem Romanian culture.