author
Gergely Moldován
1845–1930
A Transylvanian scholar who helped bring Romanian folklore and literature to a wider readership, he worked across languages as an ethnographer, translator, journalist, and professor. His writing and collecting preserved folk songs, ballads, and cultural history from a region shaped by many traditions.
2 Audiobooks
Román népdalok és balladák
by Gergely Moldován
Koszorú a román népköltészet virágaiból
by Gergely Moldován
About the author
Born on March 12, 1845, in Gherla (then Szamosújvár) and dying in Cluj on August 6, 1930, Gergely Moldován—also known as Grigore Moldovan—was a Transylvanian Romanian ethnographer, literary historian, journalist, translator, and university teacher. Reference works and encyclopedia entries consistently describe him as a major interpreter of Romanian language and culture in multilingual Transylvania.
He studied in Cluj, first worked as a lawyer and later as a school inspector, and from 1886 to 1919 taught Romanian language and literature at the Franz Joseph University in Cluj. He also served in university leadership roles, including as dean, and is remembered for combining scholarship with public cultural work.
Moldován is especially associated with collecting, studying, and translating Romanian folk poetry. His books on folk songs, ballads, and the traditions of Romanian communities show a lasting interest in ethnography as well as literature, and they still make him an important figure for readers interested in folklore, language, and the cultural life of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Transylvania.