Măiastra. Studi e testi romeni

Series Editors

Dan Octavian Cepraga (responsabile), Alvaro Barbieri, Federico Donatiello, Sorin Șipoș

Scientific Advisory Board

Alvise Andreose (Università di Udine)
Bogdan Crețu (Universitatea Al. I. Cuza, Iași)
Sandu Frunză (Universitatea Babeș-Bolyai, Cluj-Napoca)
Otilia Hedeșan (Universitatea de Vest din Timișoara)
Cătălina Iliescu (Universidad de Alicante)
Cristian Luca (Universitatea Dunărea de Jos, Galați)
Cristian Moroianu (Universitatea din București)
Zeno Verlato (CNR – Opera del Vocabolario Italiano)

Honorary Members of the Scientific Advisory Board

Lorenzo Renzi, Roberto Scagno

Editorial Team

Iulia Cosma, Andreea David, Nicola Perencin, Beatrice Rugi

Brancusi’s bird
in the hollow of pine trunks
or when the snow was like sea foam
Twilit sky leaded with elm boughs.
[Ezra Pound, Cantos, Notes for CXVII et seq.]

Măiastra is the enchanted, invulnerable bird of Romanian folk tradition, a creature of dazzling, supernatural beauty that appears in numerous Romanian fairy tales and rural beliefs. It is also the name of the sacred bird created by Constantin Brâncuși, inspired by the primordial art of the peasants of the Carpathians (the “Brancusi’s bird” evoked by Ezra Pound): an elusive form first carved in white marble between 1910 and 1912, revisited in countless variations over three decades in polished bronze, plaster and marble of different colours. The prototype for all the subsequent Birds in Space, it is the ultimate, most sublime expression of a modernity rooted in the ancient wisdom of myth. We have chosen it as the emblem and guiding animal of a new book series in Romanian studies, established exactly ninety-three years after the first course in Romanian language and literature was introduced at the University of Padua. Rooted in the long history of the Padua school of Romanian studies, while also reflecting its current research interests, the series looks more broadly towards the future of Romanian studies in Italy. Its wide disciplinary scope seeks to extend beyond the traditional field of philological and literary research to encompass historiography, ethnography, folk traditions and linguistics, bringing methods and interpretations from different disciplinary perspectives into dialogue.

Alongside the Studies series, devoted to monographs, edited volumes and conference proceedings, a companion series will publish Italian translations of Romanian literary works and essays of particular significance.