Romanian literature () is the entirety of literature written by Romanian authors, although the term may also be used to refer to all literature written in the Romanian language or by any authors native to Romania.
Early Romanian literature includes religious texts and historical chronicles written in Old Church Slavonic. Romanian literature throughout history has been influenced both by international European movements, such as Humanism and Enlightenment, and by the local geopolitical context and major national events such as the Unification of Moldavia and Wallachia and the Union of Transylvania with Romania. In addition to literature created by individual authors, Romania also has a rich tradition of folk literature which is part of the Romanian folklore. In 2009, the Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded to Herta Müller.
Romanian literature achieved its golden age during the interwar period, and several authors of the 20th century, gained international recognition, such as Mircea Eliade and Emil Cioran.
During the communist era, literature as well as most other aspects of life, were subjected to control and censorship by the state authorities. Nevertheless, during the same period many classical Romanian literary works were adapted into films and television series by the Romanian cinema and the Romanian television, as part of the nationalist desire of the communist party to promote Romanian culture.
Old Romanian literature
The development of Romanian literature has taken place in parallel with that of the rich Romanian folklore – lyric, epic, dramatic and didactic – which continues in modern times. Romanian oral literature includes doine (lyric songs), balade (ballads), hore (dance songs), colinde (carols), basme (fairy tales), snoave (anecdotes), vorbe (proverbs), and ghicitori (riddles). The folk pastoral ballad Miorița is one of the best known examples of Romanian folk literature. Folk literature has been transcribed by authors, notably Petre Ispirescu, who collected folk tales.
Medieval Slavonic literature
The script of Old Church Slavonic began to be used in the territories of current day Romania as early as the 10th century, with the oldest surviving manuscripts being dated as far back as the 12th century. The earliest dated texts in Slavonic, originally from Wallachia and Moldavia, consist of a series of religious songs by Nicodim and Filotei and a hagiographical text by Grigore Țamblac, all being dated between 1385 and 1391. Also by the 15th century many copies of medieval Slavonic texts have been created by the scribes of the Danubian Principalities.
In the meantime numerous Slavonic and Greek translations of popular medieval romances were in circulation across the Danubian Principalities, like the Alexander Romance and Barlaam and Josaphat.
Particularly of note is The Teachings of Neagoe Basarab to his son Theodosie: a series of teachings on morality and politics, written between 1519 and 1521, by the Wallachian Lord Neagoe Basarab, a work written in the spirit of the Renaissance and considered one of the oldest great works of Southeastern European literature.
Moldavian historical chronicles written by court order in the 16th century include the chronicles of Macarie, Azarie and Eftimie.
Beginning of writing and publishing in Romanian
The earliest books in Romanian were translated from Slavonic religious texts in the 15th century. Psaltirea Hurmuzaki, Codicele Voronețean, Psaltirea Voronețeană, Psaltirea Scheiană, and others are religious texts from Moldavia that carry evidence of being translations of manuscripts written in the other languages in the Banat-Hunedoara area. Of them, Hurmuzaki Psalter, a Romanian copy of a bilingual Church Slavonic - Romanian Psalter,Iosif Camară, Originea celui mai vechi text românesc [The origin of the oldest Romanian text], in Reception of the Holy Scriptures: at the crossroads between philology, hermeneutics and translation studies, XII, Iași, Editura Universității „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, 2023, p. 111-140. has been dated between 1491–1504 by watermarks,Iosif Camară, Data alcătuirii celui mai vechi text românesc. Filigranul de tip corabie din Psaltirea Hurmuzaki [The Date When the Oldest Romanian Text Was Written. The ship Watermark of the Hurmuzaki Psalter], in Zamfirei Mihail: omagiu, Academia Română. Institutul de Studii Sud-est Europene, eds. Lia Brad Chisacof, Simona Nicolae, Cătălina Vătășescu. Cluj-Napoca: Scriptor / Mega, 2024, pp. 151-165. making it the oldest preserved manuscript in Romanian.
The earliest surviving document in Romanian that can be precisely dated is Neacșu's letter written in 1521, to the jude ("judge and mayor") of Brașov, Hans Benkner.
The first book printed in Wallachia was a Slavonic religious book, printed in 1508 at Târgoviște. The first book printed in the Romanian language was Catehismul românesc by Filip Moldoveanul in 1544. Other translations from Greek and Slavonic books were printed later in the 16th century. Dosoftei, a Moldavian Bishop, in 1673, published the first Romanian metrical psalter, the earliest collection of poems written in Romanian.
Early efforts to publish the Bible in Romanian started with the 1582 printing in the small town of Orăștie of the so-called Palia de la Orăștie – a translation of the first books of the Old Testament – printed by Deacon Șerban (the son of Deacon Coresi) and Marien Diacul (Marien the Scribe). Palia was translated by Bishop Mihail Tordaș et al. from the Pentateuch printed at Kolozsvár in 1551 by Gáspár Heltai and a version of Vulgate.
The entire Bible was not published in Romanian until the end of the 17th century, when the Metropolitanate's Press of Bucharest printed Biblia de la București ("The Bucharest Bible") in 1688, compiled by the Greceanu Brothers.
In Transylvania, there was also an attestation of the explicit use of a Latin model, with the appearance of the first Romanian dictionary, Dictionarium Valachico-Latinum (Caransebeș, about 1650), while the first grammar of the Romanian language written in Latin was Institutiones linguae Valachicae (Crișana, circa 1770).
Humanism
The first appearances of humanism in Moldavia and Wallachia were in the 16th century with the likes of and Petru Cercel, but it took another century for these ideas to fully flourish. This delay can be attributed to the continuation of Byzantine culture in the Danubian Principalities, or to the different social classes compared to Western Europe.
During the 17th century, humanism spread to Moldavia via Poland and its Jesuit schools, having as representatives the likes of Grigore Ureche, Miron Costin, and Ion Neculce with their chronicles on the history of Moldavia. Following the example of Petro Movilă's Kyiv Colegium, the Lords Matei Basarab and Vasile Lupu established Neoclassical schools such as the Schola Graeca et Latina and the Iași Colegiu. In Wallachia, Mihail Moxa, Kyr Gavriil and Stoica Ludescu wrote historical chronicles; while the Cronica Buzeștilor (The Chronicle of the Buzești House) was written by an anonymous writer.George Călinescu, “Istoria literaturii române (compendiu)”, Editura Litera, 2001, pag. 30-31
Constantin Cantacuzino was a nobleman and historian and a notable humanist scholar. Nicolae Milescu was a Moldavian-born writer, diplomat and traveler, who lived and worked in the Tsardom of Russia.
The most significant Romanian humanist was Dimitrie Cantemir, who wrote histories of Wallachia, Moldavia and the Ottoman Empire, and philosophical and religious treaties such as , The Indescribable Image of Sacred Science, and The Little Compendium of Logic. He also wrote the Roman à clef A Hieroglyphic History in 1705.
Enlightenment
In 18th century Transylvania, throughout the Blaj Schools of Inocențiu Micu-Klein, a Latinist and Enlightenment movement, the Școala Ardeleană emerged, producing philological studies of the Romantic origin of the Romanian language. Among the many works on Romanian history and the Romanian language by Samuil Micu-Klein, Gheorghe Șincai and Petru Maior, the "Heroic-comic-satiric Poem" Țiganiada by Ion Budai-Deleanu, can also be found, promoting democratic and enlightenment ideals.
In Wallachia and Moldavia, the Enlightenment can be seen in the Poems and Prose of Iancu Văcărescu, Costache Conachi, and Dinicu Golescu.
National awakening
In 1829, in Wallachia, Ion Heliade Rădulescu founded the first Romanian-language Newspaper, Curierul Românesc, and cofounded the Philharmonic Society which later created the National Theatre of Bucharest. Albina Românească, a similar publication to Curierul Românesc was started contemporaneously by Gheorghe Asachi in Moldavia.
Pașoptism
In the 1800s, the revolutionary ideas of nationalism spreading in Europe were also circulating among Romanians who desired national independence from the Ottoman Empire. These nationalistic attitudes led to the revolutions of 1821 and 1848. These ideas were mainly propagated by Mihail Kogălniceanu's publication Dacia Literară which was adapting French Romanticism to Romanian writing with the purpose of creating an original national literature.
The works of these writers, later dubbed Pașoptists (after the Revolution of 1848), have been shown not only to contain Romantic but also Neoclassical and Realist traits. Vasile Alecsandri was a prolific writer, contributing to Romanian literature with poetry, prose, the Chirița plays (1850–1875), historical dramas such as Despot Vodă (1879), and collections of Romanian folklore. Also, taking inspiration from history, Constantin Negruzzi wrote the novella (1840). Other Pașoptist writers include Vasile Cârlova, Grigore Alexandrescu, Anton Pann, and Alecu Donici.
Junimea
The literary circle Junimea, founded in Iași in 1863 by Titu Maiorescu, Petre P. Carp, Vasile Pogor, Theodor Rosetti and Iacob Negruzzi began publishing the magazine Convorbiri Literare in1867, which eventually became the most important Romanian language literary publication in the 2nd half of the 19th century and 1st half of the 20th century. Through his links with Junimea, literary critic Titu Maiorescu set the direction of synchronizing Romanian literature both with other European literary movements and with Romanian folklore.
Many outstanding Romanian writers, including George Coșbuc and Barbu Ştefănescu Delavrancea, published their works in Convorbiri Literare.
Other notable authors of this era are Nicolae Bălcescu, Dimitrie Bolintineanu, Alecu Russo, Nicolae Filimon, Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu, Alexandru Odobescu, Grigore Alexandrescu and Petre Ispirescu.
The beginnings of the Romanian novel The first Romanian novel is considered to be Manoil (published in 1855) by Dimitrie Bolintineanu (if one excludes from the definition of novel the allegorical literary work by Dimitrie Cantemir, which was written between 1703 – 1705). Bolintineanu also published the novel Elena (1862). However these two novels are largely forgotten, although they are considered relevant from the point of view of describing Romanian society in the mid-19th century. Nicolae Filimon is considered the father of the Romanian novel, having written the influential novel (1863).
The great classics
Among the many writers of Junimea, four are considered to be the Great Classics of Romanian Literature: the poet Mihai Eminescu, the satirist Ion Luca Caragiale, Ioan Slavici, and Ion Creangă.
Mihai Eminescu is considered by many critics to be the most important and influential Romanian poet. His lyrical poetry has its roots in Romanian folklore intertwined with Kantian and Schopenhauer's philosophy and Buddhist cosmology. Among his greatest poems are the romantic poems Floare Albastră (1872) and Luceafărul, as well as the series of five philosophical poems called Letters (1881–1890).