Mic dicţionar de toponime istorice româneşti

The author called it “small dictionary”, although it comprises 1,087 entries, choosing as main criterion of approach the economic factor, so much important in the evolution of a locality or geographical area. However, the dictionary goes beyond this criterion, as it provides a multitude of data on political and diplomatic, military events and moments or those pertaining to cultural life (i.e. monasteries, churches, historical and architectural fortifications-monuments, old printing centres, old Romanian books, scientific and cultural personalities who excelled in various fields), while not omitting the modest settlements (some of which now extinct) that preserve, through the archaeological discoveries underlying the Romanian people, ancient geographical of the Romanian space: districts, ‘countries’, circles, with their customs of yore. At the same time, there are also references to places belonging to the Russian space, to Bulgaria, Turkey, Serbia, or to the cities of Vienna, Budapest, Paris, Berlin, involved in the Romanian history at different times, influencing it in one way or another. As for those places that, over time, played an important part in the national history, such as Bucharest, Iaşi, Sibiu, Brașov, Timişoara, Cluj, Alba Iulia, the historical information provided by the author is so exhaustive that one might take it for a genuine micromonograph.

Reader Mihail Racoviţan, Ph.D.

The present work in intended to be a natural and, at the same time, necessary sequel of the “Dicţionar de personalităţi istorice româneşti(Dictionary of Romanian historical personalities)”, issued in two editions so far. The idea of compiling a dictionary of historical toponyms emerged while publishing the aforementioned volume which shows how certain personalities described here lived and worked in or around a specific area; many of our villages and towns knew, at some point, a spectacular evolution and this development was influenced by its strategic location, the interest of some political leaders or, in most of the cases, by economic conditions. All these factors have made the more or less generous destiny of each Romanian place…

Prof. Nicolae Constantin