Letopisețul țărâi Moldovei

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   Ureche argues that written history is not a chancellery luxury but fuel: a people that stops keeping the memory of deeds loses also the nerve to perform new ones.

   Letopisețul țărâi Moldovei · 1647

   A people that forgets its ancestors' deeds also loses the courage to do new ones.

   Writing a century after the great princes, in a weakened Moldavia paying tribute to the Porte, the chroniclers had a practical reason for their work. Ureche explains why he takes up the chronicle: the brave deeds of the forefathers, left in the dark, leave descendants without models and without pride. The mechanism is psychological, not archaeological: written memory works as a mirror against which the present generation measures itself. From here flows the chroniclers' obsession with origins — whether the Moldavians descend from Roman colonists or from settlers brought by the princes — because a dignified genealogy gives weight to the present.

   “Let us not neglect so much the memory of those who came before, for if we let even their memory go, it would be a shame for those of today and for those who will come after us; for, seeing their forefathers marked by brave deeds, they too would take heart and dare to do manly deeds, and would not let the memory die, but would keep account of their own deeds as well.”

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