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PETER THE GREAT OF RUSSIA AND CHARLES XII OF SWEDEN IN THE 18TH CENTURY ROMANIAN TRANSLATIONS OF WESTERN EUROPEAN HISTORY BOOKS
Abstract
During the 18th century, the figure of great rulers such as the tsar Peter the Great of Russia or the king Charles XII of Sweden fascinated Western Europe. As a result, several treatises were dedicated to the two rulers whose paths crossed several times, amongst which Voltaire's Histoire du Charles, roi de Suede, Rouen, 1731 and a work in 6 books by the Greek-origin scholar Antonio Catiforo, Vita di Pietro il Grande, imperador della Rusia, Venice, 1736. These works reached the Romanian principalities (Moldavia, Wallachia and Transylvania) and were translated and circulated in manuscript copies as most lay books of that time. The translations however were not accurate and they often included personal comments of the translator or data not available to the Western European writers. Our research will therefore present the figures of the two monarchs as they appear in the Romanian texts, commenting upon the differences from the original books and the possible motivations of these differences. For Voltaire's text, we could identify three manuscripts containing the same complete translation by a Moldavian monk, Gherasim from IaИ™i Metropolitanate. In this case, it is interesting to note the voluntary omissions operated by the Romanian translator that can be attributed to patriotic reasons and his own view of the figure of Peter the Great as antagonist of Charles XII. Catiforo's work had two partial translations, one in Wallachia and another in BraИ™ov, Transylvania, as well as a complete version in Moldavia. Book 5 of the BraИ™ov version includes other writings on the military actions of the two sovereigns, different from Cornaro's text. The details presented, whose source remains unknown, are of considerable importance as they refer to Peter's campaign on the Prut River, his wars with the Turks and events connected to the presence of Charles XII in the Balkan region.
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