Petru Maior (; 1761 in
Marosvásárhely ''(now Târgu Mureș, Romania)'' – 14 February 1821 in
Budapest
Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...
) was a
Romanian
Romanian may refer to:
*anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Romania
**Romanians, an ethnic group
**Romanian language, a Romance language
*** Romanian dialects, variants of the Romanian language
** Romanian cuisine, tradition ...
writer who is considered one of the most influential personalities of the
Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment or the Enlightenment; german: Aufklärung, "Enlightenment"; it, L'Illuminismo, "Enlightenment"; pl, Oświecenie, "Enlightenment"; pt, Iluminismo, "Enlightenment"; es, La Ilustración, "Enlightenment" was an intel ...
in
Transylvania
Transylvania ( ro, Ardeal or ; hu, Erdély; german: Siebenbürgen) is a historical and cultural region in Central Europe, encompassing central Romania. To the east and south its natural border is the Carpathian Mountains, and to the west the Ap ...
(the ''
Transylvanian School
The Transylvanian School ( ro, Școala Ardeleană) was a cultural movement which was founded after part of the Romanian Orthodox Church in Habsburg-ruled Transylvania accepted the leadership of the pope and became the Greek-Catholic Church (). The ...
''). Maior was a member of the
Greek-Catholic The term Greek Catholic Church can refer to a number of Eastern Catholic Churches following the Byzantine (Greek) liturgy, considered collectively or individually.
The terms Greek Catholic, Greek Catholic church or Byzantine Catholic, Byzantine Ca ...
clergy, a historian, philosopher, and linguist.
Works
Petru Maior took a stand and responded, in 1812, by writing the "''History of the Beginnings of the Romanians in Dacia''" against all those who questioned the
origin, character, and the becoming of his people.
Among his works are
* "''Didahii''" (1809),
* "''Propovedanii''" (1809),
* "''Prediche''" (Sermons) (1810–1811)
* "''Istoria pentru începutul românilor în Dachia''" (History of the beginnings of the Romanians in Dacia) (1812)
* "''Istoria Besearicei românilor''" (History of Romanian Church) (1813).
He was a prolific writer, who published everything he wrote during his lifetime except for two theological works: "''Procanon''" (1783) and "''Protopopadichia''" (The power of the archpriests) (1795).
The ''Buda Lexicon'', a book published in 1825, included two texts by Petru Maior, ''Orthographia romana sive latino-valachica una cum clavi'' and ''Dialogu pentru inceputul linbei române'', in which he introduced the letters ș for and ț for , which have since been in use in the
Romanian alphabet
The Romanian alphabet is a variant of the Latin alphabet used for writing the Romanian language. It is a modification of the classical Latin alphabet and consists of 31 letters, five of which (Ă, Â, Î, Ș, and Ț) have been modified from t ...
.
[Marinella Lörinczi Angioni, "Coscienza nazionale romanza e ortografia: il romeno tra alfabeto cirillico e alfabeto latino ", ''La Ricerca Folklorica'', No. 5, La scrittura: funzioni e ideologie. (Apr., 1982), pp. 75–85.]
References
Further reading
Petru Maior University: Our Patron
Romanian philosophers
Linguists from Romania
Romanian Greek-Catholic priests
Age of Enlightenment
Transylvanian School
People from Târgu Mureș
Romanians in Hungary
1756 births
1821 deaths
18th-century Romanian historians
19th-century Romanian historians
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