Challenges of the Knowledge Society (May 2014)
GLORIOUS DISCOURSES AND COMPLETE IGNORANCE: STUDENT PERCEPTION ON CANTEMIR’S WORK
Abstract
Although the works of Dimitrie Cantemir and his son Antiloh are consideed among the most important in the fields of history and litterature, nowadays it is hard to find a research initiative or a research program specialized in the study of Dimitrie Cantemir’s work. It is the indisputable merit of a Romanian born historian like Stefan Lemny to offer a very complex and profound account on the life and work of Dimitrie and Antioh Cantemir. But, like other remarkable efforts, this is an individual research. It is my intention to focus on the recent works regarding the life and work of Dimitrie Cantemir in order to prove that beside the moments of celebration there is little or no interest in the work of this remarkable Romanian intellectual. I parallel this situation with the information students have on Dimitrie Cantemir. In the first section of my article I shall focus on how much information on Cantemir do our students rely have. Thus I shall make an empirical research questioning the students of the first year on the most common facts about Cantemir’s work and life. In the second section of my article, I shall try to answer questions like how many volumes having as main subject matter the works of Cantemir have been published recently. In what branches of science the works of Cantemir have been mostly analyzed? What is the ratio between the works concerning his personality and those concerning specific topics in specific works of Dimitrie Cantemir.
