Letopisețul Țării Moldovei (osârdia)

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1. 01

   Neculce states his method explicitly: he does not repeat whatever is told, but says from whom he heard each account and lets the reader judge its credibility.

   Letopisețul Țării Moldovei (osârdia) · 1743

   A story's weight lies not in the tale, but in the teller's position.

   Neculce is a boyar who lived through the reigns from Cantemir onward and writes his chronicle both as a witness and as a collector of testimony. When he relates the legend of Dragoș the hunter, he says outright that it is an old folk story, not a document. When he relates a reign he saw himself, he writes as an eyewitness, with names, sums and dates. This distinction between heard and seen is a moment of critical awareness in Romanian chronicle writing: the storyteller labels his sources. Reading Neculce teaches that the weight of an account depends on the position of the one telling it.

   “These stories that are written here I did not hear from foolish and lying people, but from old and great men and boyars, from old men and old women, who recorded the true stories.”

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