Preotul Vasile Radu, primul orientalist român, în documente de arhivă
Priest Vasile Radu, the first Romanian Orientalist, in archival documents

Summary/Abstract: The paper intends to emphasize the importance of the knowledge and study of the archives in the research activity. The Romanian archives deliver information about the life and activity of priest and Professor Vasile Radu, the first Romanian specialized in the study of the Arabic language and Christian Arabic literature. As part of the PhD programme that I follow at the Institute of South-East European Studies of the Romanian Academy in Bucharest under the supervision of Dr. habil. Ioana Feodorov, I enterprised researches in the archives of “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University in Iași, National Archives of Romania, the Archives of the Romanian Patriarchate, the Archives of the Holy Synod, the Library of the Romanian Academy and the Archives of the Romanian Society of Broadcasting in Bucharest. In the archival units mentioned above, there are direct sources for the research of the Romanian orientalist’s life and activity. Consequent to this research, I have identified significant documents that allowed me to reconstruct the biography, the professional evolution and the scientific activity of Priest Radu. He graduated thoroughgoing studies of Hebrew and Arabic in Paris and trained as an orientalist with well-known experts in those times. He studied at École Pratique des Hautes Études and the Catholic Institute in Paris, acquiring the degree of licentiate in Arabic language on June 1927. During the period of staying in Paris, he trained as editor and translator of manuscript from various Oriental languages, which would allow him later to set up a rigorous and scientific methodology of editing, translating and researching the Biblical texts and the Christian Arabic manuscripts. Vasile Radu co-operate with Gala Galaction in translating the Holy Scriptures in Romanian from the original texts, publishing in 1938 the version known as Biblia lui Carol al II-lea [Charles II’s Bible].

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