Romanian Ceremonial Literature (17^th-18^th Centuries). Texts and Terminologies

Introduced in the literature by Dan Simonescu in 1939, the concept of “Romanian ceremonial literature” has not yet been examined by philologists via an approach meant to establish the importance of ceremonial literature among the genres of old Romanian literature and to articulate its content, though in the past decades historians have pointed out the relevance of ceremonies to political anthropology. This project aims to regain the interest of philologists in old Romanian ceremonial texts (17^th – 18^th centuries) and to elaborate an appropriate methodology meant to facilitate their study by means of an interdisciplinary approach lying at the crossroads between philology and history.

Defining the rhetoric of ceremonial texts and the study of their terminology are the major issues the current project deals with. The project also seeks to draw up an inventory of ceremonial elements referred to in a well-defined corpus of texts (Chancery documents, notes, chronographs and chronicles, travel accounts, parenetic literature). Editing a yet unknown Romanian ceremonial text, De alegerea împăratului, dated 1763 and describing the coronation ceremony of the Holy Roman Emperor, will also contribute to enriching our knowledge of ceremonial literature as a genre of old Romanian literature.