DIMITRIE CANTEMIR - A FORERUNNER OF A SOCIETY OF KNOWLEDGE

ELENA IANOŞ-SCHILLER

Abstract:Cantemir’s work is the fruit of the most brilliant mind of hid time. The Romanian writer, a gifted humanist and a remarkable creator of values, represents a top link in the chain of creating and spreading knowledge. Being a hardworking pupil he acquired the best knowledge from his forerunners and contemporaries making it his personal asset, a valuable force nourishing his creative mind. Apart from being a significant source of knowledge for the after-comers, his impressive work represents a resource to understand the past, an important constituent of the complex picture of the Romanian culture, a landmark for further development.

Keywords:society of knowledge, communication, multilingualism, multidisciplinary.

The specialized literature unanimously admits the difficult reading of Dimitrie Cantemir’s work. Although his works are improperly published, written in a difficult and tiring Romanian language, sometimes in a foreign one, they are exigent, quite unreadable and even misunderstood by some of the readers. No matter how difficult this work might seem, for a devoted reader it reveals inspiration and represents the creation of a thinker eager to know everything about the world science at all the times.

The syntagm at all timesand everywhere makes us let us look upon the continuity and everlasting existence of some undeniable values in the Romanian culture.

Approaching Dimitrie Cantemir form the generations’ evolution point of view means to bridge all the centuries before and bring “Dimitie Cantemir the person specialized in hieroglyphs”, into the modern world, as a highly cultivated man of action.

The great scholar, an overwhelming personality of the 17th and 18th century, an encyclopedic spirit, a humanist, a Renaissance and Enlightenment representative too, may be considered our contemporary and a forerunner of a society of knowledge. If we mention only a few characteristics of the modern age, several human features imposed by the present and future, we shall notice they are familiar to Cantemir and his time. We should refer to communication and multilingualism, to a large number of disciplines, to non-marginalization and globalization or westernization, to non-discrimination and tolerance, to the respect for the genuine value its promotion, regardless its origin, to the concern for the human life improvement. We also take into account the human features characteristic to Dimitrie Cantemir, such as: the adaptive and integrative abilities, the political and diplomatic qualities, his analytical and observing talent, intuition, imagination and performance.

The modern knowledge acquiring is compulsory in a society of knowledge and it involves studying continuously by combining experience with intuition and also the acquiring of certain information during the research hence the new transmission networks are necessary especially in the future in order to enable the fast and straight access to the sources. The complex process of creating and transmitting the knowledge and values from one generation to another is accomplished only after a previous approach and improvement of the new values knowledge and innovating ideas.

  1. All the works about Dimitrie Cantemir’s personality mention his outstanding abilities and interest in learning foreign languages. He started with Greek and Latin taught by Ieremia Cacavela, then he learned the Eastern and Western languages, being a proficient polyglot. He knew the classic and medieval Latin, the classic and Byzantine Greek, Slavonic, Turkish, Arabic, Persian, Russian, Polish, French, Italian, German.

Therefore, the high-leveled large communication possibilities were very useful when writing some of his works in different languages: “The Divan or the scholar’s quarrel with other people or the dispute between soul and body”, in Greek, the treaty of Turkish music “A brief approach on Theoretical music”, in Turkish; a memorial demanded by the tsar Peter the Great “ The wonderfulvictory of God over the famous Cantacuzins’ in the Romanian Country and the Brincoveanu’s Country” is written in Russian; in Latin, among other works there are the well-known “ The description of Moldavia” and “ The increase and decrease of the Ottoman Empire”

Written in different languages, these works as well as the writer himself were soon well-known abroad. At the same time, the documentary sources were available for the polyglot researcher who could often get unique information, very important for the truthful and original opinions expressed later on. As a writer, the ruler paid also careful attention to the Romanian language. His philological studies reveal Cantemir’s endeavor to promote the literature written in Romanian into the humanist European culture.

Since he considered the Romanian language was still “young” and “immature”, as mentioned in the introductory chapter of “The Hieroglyphic History”, the scholar philologist wanted to improve the means of expression, to enrich the vocabulary. The Romanian people had already started to be attracted by the Western Europe, yet, for a century they had prepared themselves to accede the Western world especially in the languages field as “ the landowners’ language was insufficient” to express certain philosophical, literary, or political ideas in an abstract scientific language. Therefore the most modern Romanian scholar of the time introduced neologisms, adapting the Greek, Latin or Latin-Roman terms to the Romanian phonetic system and he even created new words. Although the neologisms came into Romanian through other ways and were more or less changed or the new terms are obsolete, their large number is quite amazing and represents a landmark of the humanist Renaissance culture and also a creation force as powerful as Rabelais’ in the world literature.

The superficial readers complain about certain particularities of Cantemir’s work – the Latin syntax and its unusual topic, especially the extremely long sentences. The choice of the Latin syntax is justified by the Moldavian prince’s stylistic intentions deeply rooted in the general context of the European humanism. Hence the sentences with syntactic and morphological dislocations, inversions, with rhymed and rhythmical fiction as well as other ways of organizing the stylistic discourse perfectly match the great European trends of the time.

The Moldavian writer’s efforts to cultivate Romanian, to prove its Latin origin and to create a literary style according to the Western patterns belong to the same desire of accession and improvement of the Romanian language prestige among the European languages.

  1. Taking globalization into account, the contemporary world with no frontiers represents a conglomerate in which the component parts must know each other and need economical, political and cultural integration promoting the real values.

The Romanian countries have never been isolated and the connections with the Eastern world and then the Western one go back in time.

When he was only 15, Dimitrie Cantemir was in Istambul as a hostage at the sultan’s court. During his brother’s reign he was the Romanian ruler’s envoy at the Ottoman Court and he proved to be deeply interested in the Eastern culture and civilization especially for the Turkish-Ottoman one acquiring thorough knowledge to become an expert in orientalism.

Although he was a teenager he had already become well-known by the high-life people at the Court and the ottoman aristocracy, in the cultural, political and diplomatic circles, having best relations with the intellectuals in Istambul, the circles of the high orthodox clergy an also with the European diplomacy representatives such as: France, Russia, Holland.

Around 1700, there could be seen the first signs of “western orientation”, George Călinescu calling it an orientation towards the Western countries, obviously focused on the cultural West. Although Cantemir had studied in Constantinopol and worshipped his master Cacavela all his life, he was the first western oriented writer. Casual as it may seem nowadays, the choice to change the Eastern clothes with the Western ones represents a symbol of cosmopolitanism, a new feeling, a way of understanding beforehand the integration in a new, modern world.

He lived his childhood at his father’s princely court, then, as ruler, he chose the alliance with Russia, the most powerful Christian Orthodox country of the time, he was the counselor of Peter 1st concerning the Eastern policy of the Russian Empire, once again proving his outstanding knowledge and qualities, the communication and politico- diplomatic abilities.

During his stay in Moscow, the Russian prince Cantemir exchanged letters with the Tzar or other Russian high officials but also with scientists, especially with many German ones who had settled down in Petersburg. As a consequence, his works became famous, especially those about the Romanian history, culture and civilization and about the Eastern Turkish-Arabian-Persian culture. Being a famous scholar, he was appointed member of the BerlinAcademy for the Oriental Sciences Department.

Cantemir spent 34 years abroad, 22 years in the Ottoman Empire and 12 years in Russia, where he had cope with different languages and customs. “He lived among the Turkish scholars and Christian ambassadors, friends with Phanariots and astrologers, music players and mathematicians”.[1] Cantemir proved an unusual mobility from the Eastern to the Western world as he had excellent adjusting and belonging abilities, these features being very valuable nowadays as well.

III.His philosophical works approach theological issues too. He thoroughly studied the Muslim religion in “The book of the system of the Mohammedan religion”, “Curanus” in Latin, a book about Orientalism and the Muslim religion. Sometimes the criticism and bibliography reveal the intention reconcile the Pagan principles and the Christian ones, like in the second part of “The Divan or the scholar’s quarrel with other people or the dispute between soul and body”.

In “Descriptio Moldavie”, an obsolete monographiy as far as the scientific information is concerned, there is an obvious attempt to establish the traits of the national character observing the Moldavian people’s qualities and defects and emphasizing their the multiethnic character. In the same way Cantemir characterizes other people as well: the Greeks, the Serbians, the Bulgarians, the Polish, the Cossacks, the Russian, the Hungarians, the Germans, the Jewish, the Gipsies. He also provides information about the every ethnic group’s position and activities, focusing upon the interethnic relations.

Dimitrie Cantemir managed to revaluate and promote foreign cultural elements. Music is an illustrative example - as a composer, music theorist, different instruments player and teacher, he is better known in the Eastern countries (Turkey, Iran, Azerbardjan) and the Western ones (France, Germany, Italy) than in his native country.

Apart from the music theoretical book and the special musical notation system, Cantemir included oriental melodies from the 17th and 18th century in the artistic world and therefore the Europeans could know the Turkish music. Fragments of Cantemir’s books and compositions were used by European composers like Gluck,Mozart in “Turkish” musical productions, in order to provide them a specific oriental character.

Dimitrie Cantemir impressed his contemporaries with his large number of compositions, his interpretation skills and the music didactics and nowadays he represents the symbol of a baroque music festival in Moscow or of some old music concerts in Istambul.

His everlasting value is obvious.

  1. Being an encyclopedic spirit, the Romanian writer was highly cultivated working in different research fields: literature, linguistics, history, philosophy, religion, geography, cartography, ethnography, musicology. This wide range of disciplines defines a Renaissance personality.

The Romanian Renaissance, non-simultaneous with the European one and deprived of certain characteristics, was known as humanism in our country and manifested itself as such.

The “Hieroglyphic History” is Dimitire Cantemir’s best literary work praised by the critics for his humoristic fantasy, ironical zest, features of the gifted author.In this work, under the veil of allegory the reader can discover kaleidoscopic characters, positive symbols – real models for spiritual accomplishment, but also negative ones, more emphasized by the author: envy, hatred, treachery, hypocrisy, arrogance (both the lion and the eagle are very arrogant), the avidity illness, servility, welfare hunting, the arrogant stupidity, slander, everlasting chattering. In fact, if we refer to the moral allegory, this is the story of the conflict t between two totally opposed moral abstractions: the good and the evil, the virtue and the vice. The fight takes place in a very intricate bas-relief, full of different forms, in continuous movement, dim universe governed by chaos.

In his fabulous lamentation, the Unicorn, Dimitrie Cantemir, indirectly meditates upon the human destiny in a chaotic world haunted by flaws. Like the whole book, the Unicorn’s lamentation represents the concern for the human condition and turns into an allegoric pleading for the endeavor to improve it.

Even in historical works such as: “The Chronicle of the Roman-Moldavian-Walachian people’s old times” and “The increase and decrease of the Ottoman Empire”, Dimitrie Cantemir expressed his humanist spirit being interested in his people’s past, the Turkish Empire’s and the one of the neighboring peoples since ancient times until his own age.

Acquiring a large amount of information from his predecessors: Romanian chroniclers, great Greek and Roman historians, many Byzantine, medieval and modern European historians with amazing memorizing abilities and an awesome power of analysis and synthesis, Cantemir, the historian, organized and worked out a huge informative material comprising historical and geographical areas and lots of peoples. New ideas about the national and universal history came out of his work and they are still quoted today.

In “The Chronicle of the Roman-Moldavian-Wallachian people’s old times” the idea to write the history of the Romanians from everywhere is new and it is emphasized in the title that follows the preface “The Chronicle of the whole Romanian Country, which was then divided in Moldavia, Wallachia and Transylvania since its foundation during Traian’s time, the emperor of Rim; of all the Romanians who had lived here.” He did not forget to mention the Romanian Macedonian people either.

For the first time he also made the Romanian history belong to the universal history. At the beginning he treated the Romanians’ history within the Roman Empire, then within the Byzantine Empire and finally within the states founded after the peoples’ migration: Hungary, Cumania, Russia, Poland, Bulgaria and Serbia. He wanted to make the people of his nationality feel proud of their noble origin and to emphasize the Romanians’ high reputation all over the world. In fact he even stressed the idea of the Romanians’ historical mission in Europe. As Romans successors, they played an important role in history, defending the European civilization from the barbarian, Tartar and Turkish invasions. Hence Cantemir indirectly pointed out that Europe, in its turn, was compelled to defend the Romanians.

The awesome work that made Cantemir famous worldwide is “Incrementa atque decrementa aulae othomanicae” (“The increase and decrease of the Ottoman Empire”), the first comprehensive history of the Ottoman Empire in an European language. Translated in English, French and German it was known in the European political and scientific environment and beyond and was considered the best historical treaty until the end of the 18th century.

Together with the analytic and memoirist or polemic character of both parts of the work, the expression “increase and decrease” is considered an universal historical law and Cantemir was one of the first European scholars to advocate it. The presentation of the sultans’ ascent relied only on documents whereas the Empire decrease had been already noticed by Cantemir himself, as he lived then. When he was only 28 he had already witnessed the catastrophic Turkish people’s defeat by the Austrians at Petrovaradin and Zenta and concluded that the powerful Ottoman Empire was going to decrease, once again proving his excellent qualities as observer and political analyst. Cantemir acquired a lot of knowledge of the Turkish history and tried to use and include it in his strategy as Moldavian ruler.

The book represented an inspiration source both for Byron in Don Juan and for Victor Hugo, who quoted it in the preface of “The Orientals”, moreover it was read by Thomas Jefferson, the 3rd president of America. Grand Harris, the chief of the European division of the USA Congress said that the book was in Jefferson’s bookcase. This makes Dimitrie Cantemir and Thomas Jefferson belong to the same category of outstanding people: they were highly educated, polyglots, leaders during troubled times, important writers and certainly there are many other talents they both had. For instance: Cantemir was a music composer and Jefferson was a violin player.