Primele călătorii științifice ale lui Ioan Bogdan (1886-1887) (original) (raw)

Towards the end of the nineteenth century, Romanian scholars began to go on more and more trips dedicated to scientific documentation, which are important for their fields of research and for their cultural activity in general. Sometimes, these trips were funded by scholarships, received from the ministries of education, universities and academies. Ioan Bogdan is one of the most important Romanian historians and philologists of that time; he founded the chair of "Slavic philology" at the University of Bucharest and contributed to the progress of the Slavic Studies research field. A scholarship received from the Ministry of Education of Bucharest played a fundamental role in his academic background, allowing him to travel, study and research libraries and archives in Vienna, St. Petersburg, Moscow and Krakow (1887-1890). There is interesting information to be found in Ioan Bogdan's correspondence with Ioan Bianu, professor of the History of Romanian Literature at the University of Bucharest and librarian of the Romanian Academy. The earliest letters were written in 1886-1887, during a trip to Vienna and Italy (San Remo, Genoa, Pisa, Viareggio, Florence, Rome); they contain details about the cities and monuments Ioan Bogdan visited, about the Italian society and English tourists, daily life, but they also refer to the subject of the scholarship, which was highly interesting for Ioan Bogdan even during the voyage through Italy.