Hasdeu, Bogdan Petriceicu

(Bogdan Petricheiku Khash-deu). Born Feb. 16, 1836 (or 1838), in Cristineşti; died Aug. 25, 1907, in Cîmpina. Rumanian and Moldavian writer, philologist and publicist.

Haşdeu, the son of A. Khyzhdeu (Haşdeu), was a professor at the University of Bucharest from 1874 to 1900. He was a member of the Rumanian Academy of Sciences and belonged to various learned societies in Russia, France, the USA, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Turkey.

Haşdeu studied at the University of Kharkov in 1855 and 1856. In 1857 he emigrated to Jassy (Iaşi), and in 1863 he moved to Bucharest. He published and served as editor in chief of more than ten literary and sociopolitical newspapers and journals, including the influential progressive journal Columna lui Traian (1870–77, 1882–83).

Haşdeu holds a significant place in the history of Rumanian and Moldavian literature as the author of the historical drama Răzvan and Vidra (1867) and the novel Fate (1864). His other important works include a fictional monograph about the Moldavian hospodar John the Terrible (1865; Russian translation, 1959), the satiric novella Little One (1863), the comedy The Three Eastern Musketeers (1878), and the collection of patriotic lyric verse Poems (1873).

Haşdeu also wrote political pamphlets, which, like all his works, are filled with democratic and antiboyar sentiments. In the 1870’s he published a number of major works on historiography, comparative philology, linguistics, folklore, and lexicography.