Andrei Constantin SĂLĂVĂSTRU

DOI: 10.47743/asui-2025-0006

Abstract: The French Wars of Religion (1562-1598) were not fought just with arms, but also with words: at a time when the printing press came of age and the public opinion began to play a greater and greater role, winning the propaganda battle was essential for the final success in a civil conflict where the complete destruction of the opponent was impossible. All sides involved in the French Wars of Religion – the Huguenots, the radical Catholics and the royalists – understood this and, therefore, tried their hardest to persuade their own supporters to stand firm and those of the adversary to defect. For this purpose, they made use of all institutions that could sway public opinion one way or the other – and, for the Catholic side, one of the most important was the University of Paris and its famous Faculty of Theology, the Sorbonne. It regarded itself as a guardian of the Catholic faith, but it was also devoted to the French monarchy, which had nurtured and protected it from its inception in the twelfth century. When the Wars of Religion broke out, the Sorbonne was confronted with a painful dilemma: stand with a Valois monarchy that seemed to fail in its duty to defend the Catholic faith or speak in favour of rebellion and deposition of an unworthy king. This paper seeks to analyse how and in what circumstances did the Sorbonne start to criticize, and then attack – to the point of justifying the deposition of the king – the Valois monarchy.

Keywords: Sorbonne; Wars of Religion; France; Catholic Propaganda.

Mihai COVALIUC

DOI: 10.47743/asui-2025-0005

Abstract: The study analyzes the Moldavian diplomatic mission carried out between 1505-1506 to Venice, one of the few non-political missions from the early period of Bogdan III’s reign. Sent in the context of preparations for the marriage with Elizabeth, daughter of the King of Poland, the mission reflects the prince’s personal concerns rather than strategic objectives. The delegation included Ieremia the treasurer, Gheorghe the cupbearer and Bernardus the castellan, the latter dying on the route between Buda and Venice. Venetian sources, especially Marino Sanudo’s accounts, provide details about the audience of the envoys at the Venetian Senate, about the gifts brought to the doge and about their participation in official ceremonies and carnival festivities. The prolonged presence of the Moldavian envoys in the lagoon indicates their integration into the Venetian diplomatic protocol and contact with representatives of other European powers. The mission, although personally motivated, illustrates the complexity of the Moldovan diplomatic apparatus, the professionalism of the boyar elite and the major risks of diplomatic activity at the beginning of the 16th century, transforming into a significant episode in the history of Moldova’s international relations.

Keywords: Moldavia; diplomacy; Venice; Bogdan III; Poland.

Livia-Ioana POTOP

DOI: 10.47743/asui-2025-0004

Abstract: The institution of the public notary played an important role in authenticating and formalizing medieval legal practices throughout Europe, with notarial instruments operating within the framework of voluntary jurisdiction and incorporating elements of public law. As such, the products of this institution functioned as public legal documents, defined by formal validity and probative force in judicial contexts. At the same time, notarial acts were produced at the request of private individuals and served specific private needs. Issued by a public officer and validated through formal procedures, these documents acquired public recognition and legal authority. This dual character places notarial instruments at the intersection of private interest and public authority: while their content responds to private concerns, their form and probative force derive from an institutional framework. This tension raises an essential question: why and under what conditions were notarial texts preserved within institutional archives? The present study addresses this issue by examining the transmission and preservation of notarial instruments in medieval Transylvania, focusing on different documentary forms, including drafts, authenticated instruments, and copies. Diplomatic criteria are employed not as rigid classificatory tools, but rather as analytical means for distinguishing between different levels of authenticity, thereby clarifying the relationship between juridical, documentary, and historical validity.
This methodological approach allows notarial instruments to be reconsidered not merely as a category of public records, but as part of a broader documentary landscape shaped by pragmatic choices, material conditions, and evolving institutional contexts. In doing so, the study contributes to a more flexible and nuanced understanding of notarial sources and their preservation within institutional archival practices.

Keywords: Transylvania; public notary; preservation; legal documents; draft; copies; authenticated documents.

Alexandru SIMON

DOI: 10.47743/asui-2025-0003

Abstract: On 28 April 1456, an unknown Venetian scribe authored a “synthesis” of the main reports that had reached the Republic of Saint Mark and of the main events that had occurred in the Laguna over the past couple of days. The report was sent to Zuan Canal, the son of commander and diplomat, including at Murad II’s court, Niccolò, and the castellan of the Garzetta at the gates of Venetian Brescia, at the border with the Duchy of Milan (the report was intercepted and copied by the former mortal enemies of the Serenissima, thus surviving in the State Archives of Milan). Redacted under the impact of the recent arrest of the Venetian bailo in Constantinople, Bartolomeo Marcello, accused of secret dealings with Sultan Mehmed II, the “synthesis” featured prominently a – verified/ “vetted” – information regarding Moldavia. Following an Ottoman raid on Mytilene, the centre of Lesbos, the sultan had sent a Gattilusio lady (either the daughter of the recently deceased Dorino I or the offspring of his son and successor Domenico) to Peter Aaron, the contested lord of Moldavia, who had recently agreed to pay tribute to Mehmed. The “matrimonial gift” was intended to strengthen Mehmed’s influence over Moldavia, for the sultan made ready to attack the Kingdom of Hungary at Belgrade, as John Hunyadi had already been informed – via Ragusa (on 15 April 1456) – by the said Bartolomeo Marcello. The complexities encompassed by this bundle of information are rather self-evident and speak of the highly volatile nature of the years that followed the fall of Byzantium. The present paper attempts to survey the implications of the edited and unedited coeval records.

Keywords: John Hunyadi; Peter Aaron; Mehmed II; Bartolomeo Marcello; Gattilusio family; Ottoman Empire; Moldavia; Hungary; Venice; crusade; diplomacy; matrimony.

Daniel MIREA

DOI: 10.47743/asui-2025-0002

Abstract: This article examines the dating of documents issued between 1428 and 1442. The first one, a charter preserved in a later copy, is dated during the reign of King Sigismund and was issued at Pojon (Pressburg/Bratislava) on 28th October 1429 for the monks of the Tismana Monastery in Wallachia. The editors of the Documenta Romaniae Historica (DRH) series have revised this date and reassigned the charter to the year [1428]. The royal itinerary indicates that 1429 is the correct year. The second document, an original letter without a year, was also issued at Pojon and dated therein “five days after the birth of the Lord our God and Saviour Jesus Christ.” The DRH editors assigned it the date 29th December [1437]. This year is unfounded, as Emperor Sigismund is described in the text as “cheerful and benevolent”, although he had already died weeks before, on 9th December 1437. Based on the itinerary and the content of the letter, the correct year should be identified as [1434]. The dating 29th December [1434] was already proposed in studies of the 1920s, in “Urkundenbuch zur Geschichte der Deutschen in Siebenbürgen” (Ub Siebenbürgen, volume IV, 1937) as well. The third document, an original letter written by two boyars of Prince Vlad Dracul to the citizens of Kronstadt, is dated “on the Monday before St George’s Day”, again without indicating the year. In 1905 historian Ioan Bogdan dated the letter to 23rd April [1442], assuming that St George’s Day in Hungary fell on 24th April. Unlike the Magyars and other populations of medieval Hungary, Wallachians and Transylvanian Saxons celebrate St George’s Day on 23rd April. This practice must therefore also be presumed in the present case. During the reign of Vlad Dracul, the letter can be dated to the Monday preceding 23rd April in the years [1438-1440]. The final letter, dated in the original as “die visitationis dive marie anno 1531”, has been published by several editors (N. Iorga, Ub Siebenbürgen, DRH) as a document from 1431. However, the year 1531 is clearly legible in the original manuscript (see Annex). Internal diplomatic analysis unequivocally confirms the issuer (Ladislaus Apor), the recipient (Lukas Hirscher, judex regius / mayor of Kronstadt), and the year 1531.

Keywords: Braşov (Kronstadt); chronology; Wallachia; Moldavia; Sigismund of Luxembourg; Transylvania; Vlad Dracul.

Andi MIHALACHE

DOI: 10.47743/asui-2025-0001

Abstract: Travel is that somewhere into which you have recently stumbled, and which gives you further reasons to stay, though you are the one who would rather not linger there. The Earth beneath your feet is your best friend: it carries you across its entire length. It takes you everywhere with it, towards all its widths. Otherwise, you could never find yourself again: flying with your knees up to your chest is less than ideal. The Earth has guided your steps since you can remember, to keep you daily in the sunlight, may it be always visible or, at times, barely there. So do not rush. The world is left speechless if your eyes are too inquisitive. What matters is not to lose sight of humankind’s oldest aspirations: overcoming oneself; the desire to reclaim a place in heaven – a place that was once ours, yet we took it for granted. Whatever we may claim, the journey always has a will of its own. It follows its own non-negotiable path. It directs us towards that which we did not know we desired. And a traveller, even if willing, does not become one with the journey. He accompanies it and adapts to it, hoping that, at least sometimes, the journey might ask his opinion. It is not the case. Therefore, people are compelled to do what they hate the most: hesitate, deliberate, choose, and decide. Is the sky capable of having a history? Perhaps only the history of how human beings have struggled in so many ways to glimpse its mysteries century after century. This study aims to address, in part, these uncertainties.

Keywords: travel; imaginary; ascension; blue; sky; center.

Daniel LAZĂR

DOI: 10.47743/asui-2021-0033

Abstract: The Yugorock of the 70s-90s was not rejected a priori by the regime, as it occurred in the other socialist countries. The Communist Party believed that it was harmless as long as the authorities monitored it closely. The outbreak of the civil war in 1991 coincided with the “cultural” debut of turbofolk in Serbia and Serbian territories throughout Yugoslavia. It was characterized as a suburban culture movement, “tasted” by uneducated supporters of Slobodan Milošević’s style and that abounds in elements of kitsch by promoting peripheral messages such as “war glamour”, “greedy is cool”, “get rich quickly”, able to fascinate a decomposing society. In the last decade of the 20th Century, the hostile historical context turned Serbia of Slobodan Milošević into the victim of a predominant cultural “narcissism”, where certainties were eliminated and where the infallibility of the new Leader tended to become immanent.

Keywords: Yugoslavia; Tito; Milošević; communism; mass culture; rock; yugofolk; nationalism; civil war.

Elena DRAGOMIR

DOI: 10.47743/asui-2021-0032

Abstract: The literature on the history of Romania’s economy during the Cold War is quite scarce and even scarcer if we consider works based on primary archive sources and dealing with Romania’s relations with the West. The mainstream scholarship argues that the economic shortcomings of post-war Romania originated in two sets of causes: the intrinsic flaws of a socialist economic system, of a planned and state-based economy, on the one hand, and the gross incompetence of the communist leadership in terms of economic matters, on the other. Without dismissing such domestic factors, this study pleads for a complementary approach. Assessing Romania’s post-war economic conception and focussing on the country’s relations with the West, the article argues, first, that, throughout the Cold War, Romania employed the same economic policy centred on industrialization and foreign trade. Second, it contends that Romania’s economic foreign policy derived from the country’s conception of domestic economic development. Third, it contests the exclusive role of ideology in shaping up Romania’s economic foreign policy, and brings to the fore the role of pragmatic economic interests in that respect.

Keywords: Romania; communism; economy; trade; the West.

Andreea DAHLQUIST

DOI: 10.47743/asui-2021-0031

Abstract: The propaganda used by the Romanian authorities prior to the Second World War and during its first two years was weak and disorganized. Following the loss of provinces during the summer of 1940, Romanian attitudes changed mainly in response to the aggressive and widespread nature of Hungarian propaganda, which claimed the whole territory of Transylvania. In this situation, the Romanian Legation from Stockholm received instructions to spread national propaganda through media and cultural activities. This presented a challenge for the Legations staff, who struggled with various problems generated chiefly by a lack of funds and interest shown by the authorities from Bucharest. Even so, the Romanian diplomats succeeded in bringing artists and writers such as Dinu Lipatti and Liviu Rebreanu to Sweden to organize concerts, exhibitions and lectures. Their efforts made their work visible in the Swedish mass media, reaching ordinary people from small towns and villages across the nation.

Keywords: culture; propaganda; Swedish press; Romania; Second World War.

Ionel MOLDOVAN

DOI: 10.47743/asui-2021-0030

Abstract: This study presents a contribution on the topic of the establishment of the Orthodox Theology Faculty from Chişinău in 1926. The novelty factor of the research is represented by the use of previously unedited documents from the Archives of the Metropolitan Church of Moldavia and Bukovina from Iaşi. We highlight the importance of the file no. 71/1926, exclusively dedicated to this topic, which contains original and copied documents with the main addresses and interventions sent by the clergy from Chişinău and Iaşi to the Romanian authorities, as well as the decisions adopted by those in power. Those documents have a great relevance to the topic, as the issue of the new faculty made it as a press subject only after the failure of the negotiations between institutions. The conclusion is that there were two separate projects for the establishment of superior theological education institutes based in Chişinău and Iaşi. The Archbishop Gurie Grosu from the Bessarabian capital wanted a Theological Academy in Chişinău, in the template of the one from Kyiv, but the Moldavian Metropolitan Pimen Georgescu proposed the reopening of the Theology Faculty from the University of Iaşi. The Romanian authorities compiled the two projects, resulting in the establishment of a Theology Faculty located in Chişinău, but under the auspices of the University of Iaşi.

Keywords: Romanian higher theological education; University of Iaşi; Bessarabia; Gurie Grosu; Pimen Georgescu.