Khyzhdeu, Aleksandru

(Alexandra Haşdeu). Born 1811 in the village of Kristineshti, Bessarabia; died there 1874. Moldavian writer and scholar who wrote in Russian. Father of B. P. Haşdeu.

Khyzhdeu graduated from the department of law of the University of Kharkov in 1830. In addition to other disciplines in the humanities and natural sciences, he studied Ukrainian and Moldavian folklore. Khyzhdeu was a seminal figure in Moldavian folklore studies. He published the article “Two Moldavian Songs” (1830), and later wrote “Rumanian Folk Songs in Russian” (1833) and “Bessarabian Writers” (1835), which appeared in the journals Vestnik Evropy and Teleskop, respectively. Khyzhdeu, one of the first scholars to do research on the Ukrainian writer and philosopher G. Skovoroda, was the author of the essay “Grigorii Varsava Skovoroda” (1835). The cycle Moldavian Sonnets (1837), which is imbued with humanism and national pride, is the most notable of Khyzhdeu’s poetic works. Khyzhdeu also wrote fables, the historical novella The Duke (1830), and the short story “The Reign of the Arnaut” (1872), which deals with the struggle of the Moldavian peasants against a Phanariot hospodar.