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Helsinki Romanian Studies Journal
No. 3 (2025)FOREWORD
The third issue of HEROS Journal continues the journal’s commitment to exploring Romanian language, literature, and culture through a plurality of scholarly lenses and disciplinary approaches. The present volume brings together contributions that span historical inquiry, literary and cultural analysis, translation studies, linguistics, and language pedagogy, highlighting both diachronic depth and contemporary relevance within Romanian Studies and beyond.
Several articles in this issue engage with historical and cultural foundations, offering new perspectives on formative moments and texts. From the cultural and morphological analysis of Johann Ignaz von Felbiger’s eighteenth-century bilingual educational work, to a socio-cultural examination of the emergence of modern Romanian theatre, the volume foregrounds the role of language, performance, and translation in shaping cultural identities. Other contributions address literary imaginaries and intertextual dialogues, such as the comparative exploration of mythological typologies in the fantasy worlds of Michael Ende and Răzvan Rădulescu, or the linguistic and translational analysis of verbal periphrases in Bacoviana by Mircea Cărtărescu.
The issue also reflects the journal’s strong interest in multilingualism and language in use. Articles devoted to plurilingual approaches in teaching Romanian as a foreign language and to the translation of Romanian literary structures into other languages underscore the journal’s engagement with applied linguistics, pedagogy, and cross-cultural mediation. At the same time, the volume addresses pressing contemporary cultural debates, notably through a critical examination of the controversies surrounding manele in Romania, situated at the intersection of marginality, politics of taste, and cultural industries.
The volume is further enriched by three book reviews that broaden its intellectual and thematic scope. These include a perceptive and inspiring review of a recent biography of Emil Cioran, offering a nuanced insight into the thinker’s life and intellectual legacy; a rigorous analysis of a volume devoted to Nadia Comăneci, read through the lens of surveillance and control during the Ceaușescu regime; and an informed assessment of a textbook for teaching Romanian as a foreign language, which highlights both its pedagogical coherence and its practical value. Together, these reviews contribute substantively to debates on intellectual history, memory and power, and contemporary language pedagogy.
We would like to express our sincere gratitude to all the authors who have entrusted HEROS Journal with their work and whose contributions meet the high scholarly standards upheld by the journal. We are equally indebted to the peer reviewers, whose rigorous evaluations, careful attention to academic integrity, and constructive feedback have been essential in ensuring the quality, originality, and reliability of this issue. Their commitment plays a decisive role in maintaining the journal’s academic credibility and in strengthening the HEROS community as a space of excellence, responsibility, and scholarly dialogue. We hope that this third issue will inspire further research and foster meaningful conversations among scholars, students, and readers engaged with the intersections of language, literature, history, and culture.
The Editors
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Helsinki Romanian Studies Journal
No. 2 (2025)FOREWORD
The second issue of HEROS Journal offers a rich and diverse collection of articles exploring Romanian language, society, and culture from multiple, often intersecting perspectives. The contributions span a comparative examination of the codification and standardization of Romanian and Finnish, analyses of urban multilingualism in Timișoara (Romania), and reflections on the challenges of teaching Romanian as a foreign language in Serbia, all anchored in discussions of language history and dynamism. Further articles engage with contemporary themes such as the language of LGBTQ communities on Romanian social media, discourse networks and the transformation of Romanian journalism from print to digital formats, as well as diary discourse that frames memory as individual heritage. The hereby issue is further enriched by two book reviews: one examining a volume focused on endangered languages in Italy and the Balkans, and the other exploring the Security (Sigourantza) files of the renowned Romanian novelist Panait Istrati. Together, these studies offer fresh and thought-provoking insights while fostering dialogue between Romanian and broader linguistic and cultural contexts.
A part of the contributions included in this issue were first presented at the International Conference BORDERS – Romanian Across Borders: Identity, Migration, Culture, and Linguistic Change in the Romance Family, held at the University of Helsinki, Finland, on 5th‑6th May 2025. Organised in partnership with CoCoLaC (Comparing and Contrasting Languages and Cultures), the Romanian Language Institute (Bucharest, Romania), the Romanian Cultural Institute in Stockholm (Sweden), Tekstin Talo (Helsinki), and Sivuvalo Platform, the conference created a vibrant space for scholarly exchange across disciplines and borders, all featuring Romanian studies.
We would like to express our sincere gratitude to all the speakers and contributors who have honoured HEROS Journal with their invaluable work. We also extend our deepest appreciation to the peer reviewers for their thorough evaluations and insightful feedback, which have been essential in maintaining the academic rigor and integrity of this issue. Their dedication significantly contributes not only to the quality of the journal but also to the cultivation and strengthening of the HEROS community—a vibrant network of researchers committed to advancing Romanian Studies. It is our hope that this issue will provoke further reflection and foster meaningful dialogue amongst scholars, students, and readers engaged with the intricate relationships between language, identity, and culture.
The Editors
Online ISSN 2984-5068
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Helsinki Romanian Studies Journal
No. 4 (2026)FOREWORD
As HEROS Journal enters its fourth issue, it continues to develop as a space for international scholarly dialogue dedicated to Romanian Studies. The contributions brought together in this volume reflect the breadth of contemporary research in the field, illustrating how Romanian language, literature, history, and culture continue to generate productive conversations across disciplines, methodologies, and academic traditions. In doing so, the journal reaffirms its commitment to promoting innovative research while strengthening the international community of scholars engaged with Romanian Studies.
Several contributions in this issue revisit historical and linguistic questions through innovative perspectives. Carmen Dura continues the research initiated in the previous issue of HEROS Journal with the second part of her detailed analysis of Johann Ignaz von Felbiger's eighteenth-century bilingual educational work, this time focusing on syntactic phenomena regarding the predicate, the predicative complement, and the verb's arguments. The volume further explores linguistic history through Adam Mikołaj Matuszczak’s investigation of Serbian influences on the vocabulary related to traditional culture and cuisine in the Banat Romanian dialect, illustrating the complex cultural and linguistic interactions that have shaped regional varieties of Romanian.
The issue also opens new directions of inquiry into literary, cultural, and contemporary social phenomena. Alexandra Olteanu examines the emergence and marketing of the historical novel as a literary genre in the nineteenth century, while Anamaria Radu and Alexandra Cotoc propose a thought-provoking exploration of artificial intelligence and Romanian cultural heritage through the concept of Eminescu’s AI doppelgänger. Cristina Hurdubaia’s ethnographic case study offers valuable insights into processes of self-cultivation and domestic reconfiguration in the context of Romanian migration, further expanding the journal’s interdisciplinary perspective.
The volume concludes with two book reviews that further enrich its intellectual and thematic scope. Brendan Humphreys offers a compelling discussion of Bruce Lincoln's Secrets, Lies, and Consequences: A Great Scholar's Hidden Past and His Protégé’s Unsolved Murder, an important and thought-provoking work that sheds new light on the life of the Romanian historian of religions Ioan Petru Culianu and the circumstances surrounding his unsolved murder. The issue closes with Nadia-Flaviana Albescu’s engaging review of Crina-Magdalena Zărnescu’s Delicatese cu spirit și savoare. Identități culturale și culinare, inviting readers into a delightful exploration of culinary traditions, cultural memory, and shared identities, and providing a fitting conclusion to a volume that celebrates the richness and diversity of Romanian Studies.
This issue also marks the beginning of a new institutional collaboration with the Romanian Language Lectureships at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz and Heidelberg University, initiated through the commemorative conference dedicated to Alexandru Cihac, organized at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz in November 2025 to mark the bicentenary of the scholar’s birth. We are particularly grateful to Professors Anca Gâță and Romanița Constantinescu for this fruitful partnership, which will continue with the publication of the special fifth issue of HEROS Journal (December 2026), dedicated to the topic of etymology.
We would like to express our sincere gratitude to all the authors who have entrusted HEROS Journal with their work and whose contributions continue to shape the journal’s academic profile. We are equally indebted to the peer reviewers, whose rigorous evaluations, thoughtful recommendations, and unwavering commitment to academic excellence ensure the quality and integrity of every issue. Their work remains essential not only to maintaining the journal's scholarly standards but also to strengthening the growing HEROS community as an international space of intellectual exchange, collegiality, and collaborative research.
We hope that this fourth issue will inspire further research, encourage new interdisciplinary collaborations, and continue to foster meaningful dialogue across disciplines and national academic traditions, further consolidating HEROS Journal as an international forum for Romanian Studies.
The Editors
EDITORIAL BOARD
Editor-in-Chief
Emilia Ivancu – Helsinki University, Finland
Editor
Monica Huțanu - University of Belgrade, Serbia
Editor
Tomasz Klimkowski – Adam Mickiewicz University of Poznań, Poland
Junior editor
Pavel Falaleev – University of Helsinki, Finland
Layout editor, proofreader
Oana Topală – Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles, Belgium
ADVISORY BOARD
Ioana Bican – Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Cristina Bogdan – University of Bucharest, Romania
Radu Bogdan – Tulane University, New Orleans, USA
Marina Cap-Bun – University of Constanța, Romania
Roxana Ciolăneanu – University of Lisbon, Portugal
Silvio Cruschina – Helsinki University, Finland
Daiana Cuibus – Babes-Bolyai University/Romanian Language Institute, Romania
Baudouin Decharneux – L’Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Belgium
Iulia Dondorici – Freie Universität Berlin, Germany
Camelia Sanda Dragomir – University of Naples ‘L’Orientale’, Italy
Cécile Folschweiller – INALCO, Paris, France
Gabriela Haja – ‘Alexandru Philippide’ Institute of Romanian Philology, Romania
Jukka Havu – University of Tampere, Finland
Kazimierz Jurczak – Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland
Thede Kahl – Friedrich Schiller University, Jena, Germany
Martin Maiden – University of Oxford, UK
Roberto Merlo – University of Turin, Italy
Matti Miestamo – Helsinki University, Finland
Oana Murăruș – University of Bucharest, Romania
Paul Nanu - University of Alba Iulia, Romania
Florin Oprescu – Universität Wien, Austria
Jana Páleníková – Comenius University Bratislava, Slovakia
Cristian Preda – University of Bucharest, Romania
Teodora Șerban-Oprescu – Bucharest University of Economic Studies
Fernando Sánchez-Miret – The University of Salamanca, Spain
Gabriel Sandu – Helsinki University, Finland
Ingmar Söhrman – University of Gothenburg, Sweden
Annemarie Sorescu-Marinković – Institute for Balkan Studies, Belgrade
Alice Toma – L’Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Belgium
Dragoș Ursu – University of Alba Iulia, Romania
TABLE OF CONTENTS
FOREWORD….. 7
ARTICLES
CARMEN DURA
Ediția bilingvă a lui Johann Ignaz von Felbiger „Ducere de mână către cinste și direptate, adecă la copii rumuneştii neuniții cei ce în şcole cele mici să învață spre cetanie rănduită carte”, Viena, 1777. (II) Predicatul, numele predicativ și argumentele verbului….. 9
The Bilingual Edition of Johann Ignaz von Felbiger „Ducere de mână către cinste și direptate, adecă la copii rumuneştii neuniții cei ce în şcole cele mici să învață spre cetanie rănduită carte”,Vienna, 1777. (II) The Predicate, the Predicative Complement, and the Verb’s Arguments
ANAMARIA RADU, ALEXANDRA COTOC
Synthetic Heritage: Eminescu’s AI Doppelgänger in Romanian Digital Dreamscape….. 26
ADAM MIKOŁAJ MATUSZCZAK
Influența sârbească asupra vocabularului legat de cultura tradițională şi gastronomie al dialectului bănățean al limbii române….. 39
Serbian Influences on Vocabulary Related to Traditional Culture and Cuisine in the Banat Romanian Dialect
ALEXANDRA OLTEANU
The Marketed Birth of a Genre: Nineteenth‑Century Definitions of the Historical Novel….. 55
CRISTINA HURDUBAIA
Self-Cultivation and Domestic Reconfiguration in Migration: A Heuristic Ethnographic Case Study….. 71
BOOK REVIEWS
BRENDAN HUMPHREYS
Secrets, Lies, and Consequences: A Great Scholars’ Hidden Past and His Protégé’s Unsolved Murder, by Bruce Lincoln….. 83
NADIA-FLAVIANA ALBESCU
À la table des idées : gastronomie, mémoire et identités en partage. Delicatese cu spirit și savoare. Identități culturale și culinare de Crina-Magdalena Zărnescu….. 87
INFORMATION ABOUT THE AUTHORS ….. 90
REVIEWERS OF THE CURRENT ISSUE ….. 92
INFORMATION ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Nadia-Flaviana ALBESCU is Associate Professor at the University of Alba Iulia and a teacher at the ‘Regina Maria’ High School of Arts. Her research focuses on literary studies, cultural identity, and interdisciplinary approaches to literature, with particular interest in the relationship between memory, aesthetics, and cultural practices.
Alexandra COTOC is a Lecturer, PhD, in the Department of English Language and Literature, Faculty of Letters, Babeș-Bolyai University, Romania. Her research focuses on Internet Linguistics, Sociolinguistics, Discourse Analysis, and Digital Humanities. She is a member of the Scientific Committee of the European Summer School in Digital Humanities, Culture & Technology, Cluj-Napoca, Romania, and an alumna of the European Summer School in Digital Humanities in Leipzig, Germany. She teaches undergraduate courses in English grammar, as well as courses and seminars on New Media Communication and Digital Culture, Sociolinguistics, and Internet Linguistics.
Carmen DURA is a Romanian language lecturer at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Novi Sad (Republic of Serbia). She holds degrees in literature, theology, and music from Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iași and the George Enescu University of Arts in Iași. Her doctoral dissertation, Pragmatics of Romanian Dramatic Discourse in the 20th Century, was defended in 2007 at Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iași under the supervision of Professor Constantin Frâncu. Her research focuses on linguistics, particularly linguistic pragmatics, Romanian literature, with a special interest in the works of Bartolomeu Valeriu Anania and Nicolae Steinhardt, as well as sacred music preserved in manuscript and early printed sources.
Brendan HUMPHREYS is an Associate Professor of East European Studies at the Aleksanteri Institute, University of Helsinki. He is a political historian and anthropologist whose research focuses on the Cold War, the Balkans, carceral studies, nationalism and exceptionalism, and the sociology of conflict. His publications include Russian Modernization: A New Paradigm (with Markku Kivinen, Routledge, 2021) and From Gulag to Euro Prisons (with Judith Pallot, Palgrave, 2026).
Cristina HURDUBAIA is a PhD candidate in Cultural Anthropology at INALCO (PLIDAM, Paris). Her research focuses on domestic objects in migration, with particular attention to regimes of presence, everyday practices, and the organisation of domestic space in transnational contexts, as well as the symbolic and interpretive dimensions associated with objects. Her work brings together anthropology, material culture studies, migration studies, and social museology.
Adam Mikołaj MATUSZCZAK holds a Bachelor’s degree in Romanian Philology and a Master's degree in French Philology from Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland. In his Bachelor's and Master's theses, as well as in articles and conference presentations, he has focused primarily on the history of language, linguistic geography, dialectology, etymology, and toponymy. He is particularly interested in linguistic situations in border regions and in areas where representatives of more than one nation or ethnic group live and use multiple languages. In his research, he seeks to combine traditional linguistic approaches with the active use of new technologies, particularly in language research conducted in online environments. This year, he is preparing to begin doctoral studies at his alma mater.
Anamaria RADU is a Junior Lecturer, PhD, in the Department of Romanian Language, Culture and Civilization at Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania. She is currently a Romanian language lecturer (Romanian Language Institute, Bucharest) at the Institut für Romanistik, Humboldt University of Berlin. In addition to teaching and assessing Romanian as a foreign language, her research focuses on Language Acquisition, Sociolinguistics, Discourse Analysis, and Digital Humanities.
Alexandra OLTEANU is an Assistant Professor at Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iași, Romania, and a member of the Digital Humanities Laboratory research team. Her research focuses on Cultural Studies, Digital Literary Studies, Genre Theory, and Literary History and Theory, with particular emphasis on nineteenth-century Romanian literature and the evolution of the Romanian novel. She has published extensively on nineteenth-century Romanian literature, including studies on the outlaw and historical novel, literary myths, social banditry, Romanian literary terminology, and the emergence of the Romanian historical novel. Her most recent publications appeared between 2023 and 2025.
REVIEWERS OF ISSUE No. 4/2026
Adina CHIRILĂ – West University of Timişoara, Romania
Romanița CONSTANTINESCU – Heidelberg University, Germany
Anca GÂŢĂ – University ‘Dunărea de Jos’, Galați, Romania
Ovidiu IVANCU – Vilnius University, Lithuania
Paul NANU – University of Alba Iulia, Romania
Virđinija POPOVIĆ – University of Novi Sad, Serbia
Cristina SICOE – West University of Timişoara, Romania
Liliana SOARE – University of Pitești, Romania
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Helsinki Romanian Studies Journal
No. 1 (2024)FOREWORD
The Lectureship in Romanian Language and Culture at the University of Helsinki (the Faculty of Arts, the Department of Languages), in collaboration with the University of Helsinki Library, and the Romanian Language Institute in Bucharest, is honored to present the inaugural issue of HEROS Journal (Helsinki Romanian Studies Journal). This publication is dedicated to fostering Romanian Studies and aims to establish a dynamic platform for scholarly dialogue. It seeks to engage both experienced academics and emerging researchers, while continuing the editorial legacy of the Finnish Journal for Romanian Studies (2015–2018), previously published by the University of Turku.
As a young and ambitious academic journal, HEROS aspires to promote rigorous intellectual exchange across a broad spectrum of topics within Romanian Studies. Emphasizing interdisciplinarity and inclusivity, the journal welcomes research articles that go beyond traditional fields such as Romanian language, literature, and cultural studies, and embrace diverse disciplines and methodologies.
The current issue features a rich selection of articles addressing topics ranging from Romanian philosophy, history, and society, to language, culture, literature, and cinema. These contributions offer fresh, thought-provoking perspectives and foster dialogue between Romanian and other linguistic and cultural contexts.
We extend our deepest gratitude to the contributors for their valuable insights and original research, and to the peer reviewers for their meticulous evaluations and critical contributions to the quality of this issue. Their dedication not only ensures the journal's academic rigor but also plays a vital role in building and strengthening the HEROS community of researchers committed to advancing the field of Romanian Studies.
The Editors
Online ISSN 2984-5068
