Stefan Pascu: A History of Transylvania

This book by Stefan Pascu, born in 1914, former professor of the history of Rumania at Cluj University, treats the history of Transylvania from the Stone Age to 1920. According to the statement of the publisher, p. IV, it was

originally published as Voievodatul Transilvaniei, in 2 Volumes (Cluj Editura Dacia, 1972, 1979). English Translation Copyright 1982 by Wayne State University Press [...] This edition published by Dorset Press, a division of Marboro Books Corporation, by arrangement with Wayne State University Press. 1990 Dorset Press.

According to the cover text, "this volume is an abridgment of [...] Pascu's two-volume Voievodatul Transilvaniei", and in the Note on the Translation, it is stated that it "presents a synthesis of Stefan Pascu's Voievodatul Transilvaniei, materials drawn from his other works, and passages written specifically for English-language publication." However, both regarding its contents and its size, it is most like Ce este Transilvania? [What is Transylvania?], Edit. Dacia, Cluj, 1983, a history of Transylvania. Its size is about a quarter of the first two volumes of Voievodatul Transilvaniei.¹ (Between 1972 and 1989, Pascu published four volumes of this book.) He published a History of Transylvania already in 1944, in Blaj, Rumania.

Unfortunately, there are too many serious faults in the text, pure mistakes as well as assertions based upon preconceived ideas rather than facts. It is very important that these be clearly shown, because otherwise the reader of Pascu's book will get an entirely wrong picture of the history of Transylvania. Our method of showing this is to quote a statement by Pascu and then analysing it. In a lesser number of cases, we summarize what Pascu says. Certain topics require a more detailed presentation. We use the relevant literature, to a large extent works written by Rumanian authors. Although written in the same spirit and showing similar faults as the English text, Voievodatul Transilvaniei will be referred to quite frequently, because it contains important details necessary for the understanding of several events and circumstances but omitted in the English text.

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¹It contains 317 pages, Voievodatul Transilvaniei 576+614=1190, and there is more text on each page of these two volumes than on the pages of this volume.

Stefan Pascu: A History of Transylvania