Raccontar di storie. Finalità e traguardi dei cronisti moldavi in lingua slava
Telling Stories. Aims and Goals of Moldavian Chroniclers in Church Slavonic

Summary/Abstract: The essay analyses the ancient chronicles in Church Slavonic that flourished in Moldavia in the 15th and 16th centuries, first among all the chronicles commissioned by the voivode Stephen the Great. These chronicles, written at the Moldavian court or in monasteries of the country, real hotbeds of culture, expressed the need to preserve from oblivion events and characters from the national past; to exalt the rulers sensitive to the good of the country or to reprimand the actions of those who governed badly, primarily those who strayed from the canons of the Orthodox faith. Some of these chronicles are anonymous; others indicate in the text the names of the authors – Macarie, Eftimie, Azarie and other learned monks, that merely recount the facts, but do not have a general view of them and cannot grasp the meaning of human history yet. Their great merit is in documenting the Moldavian nation’s past and its relations with the Romanian people of other historical regions and with neighboring states. The author of the Chronicle of Stephen the Great and those who continued his work have provided future historians with extensive and reliable material that illustrates the first difficult steps of the Moldavians to ensure a special place in the European and Christian context. These chronicles report in great detail the victorious exploits of Stephen the Great: for a moment Moldavia seemed, in the eyes of Europe, the last bulwark against the Ottoman invasion that threatened the entire continent.

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