Romanian tales is the denomination given to the tales collected from Romania.
History[]
19th Century[]
The first collections of folktales from the territories that are considered now part of Romania weren't even written in the Romanian language. Most of them were actually written in German. One of the first collection was Walachische Märchen by Arthur and Albert Schott, published in 1845, but the most famous still is, among German readers at least, Deutsche Volksmärchen aus dem Sachsenlande in Siebenbürgen by Josef Haltrich, published in 1856. Born in Transylvania, Haltrich collected the folktales from the Saxon population that lived there.
This situation finally changed in the second half of the century, when the first folk tales written in Romanian were finally published. This was partially thanks to the folklore magazine Convorbiri Literare, founded in 1867 by Titu Maiorescu (1840-1917), that allowed Romanian folklorist to publish folk tales in their native language. Among its contributors we should mention Ion Slavici (1848-1925), whose most memorable contribution is Stan Bolovan, the humoristic story of a father with so many children he can't feed that tricks a dragoon to steal his treasure making him believe the many hungry children he has want to eat him; Miron Pompiliu (1848-1897); but specially Ion Creangă (1837-1889), whose contirutions included such classics as Capra cu trei iezi, in 1875 Povestea porcului in 1876, and Fata babei și fata moșneagului in 1877. Tales like this made Creangă the second most celebrated collector of Romanian folktales in the 19th Century.
The first is Petre Ispirescu (1830-1887). In 1872 he published the collection Legende sau basmele românilor, that quickly became the master collection in regards of Romanian tales. Among its tales we can find such classics as Youth Without Age and Life Without Death, Praslea the Brave and the Golden Apples and The Enchanted Pig, as well as versions of famous tale types like Donkey Skin (Găinăreasa) and The Twelve Dancing Princesses (The Emperor's Twelve Daughters and the Enchanted Palace). But the most remarkable one is Ileana Sânziana, the story of a king's youngest daughter who, after proving her boldness defeating a wolf, a lion and a dragon, goes to serve at an emperor's court posing as a man. After the success of the first edition Ispirescu kept collectiong tales for the following ten years, culminating in 1882 with a revised adition that added many of the tales Ispierscu collected during those years, among which we should mention version of ATU 480 The Three Oranges (Cele trei rodii aurite) and ATU 923 Love Like Salt (Sarea în bucate). Despite their oral origins, Ispirescu's tales are heavily embelished. It has been theorised that the cause of this it's that Ispirescu didn't collect the tales from a rural enviroment, but an urban one, where it's considered that the narrative style is more stylized. Other reason for this could be that Ispirescu wrote down the tales from memory, after a quite while he heard them, so it would be normal he changed the story, even if it was unintentionally. Despite all of that, Ispirescu's tales are considered folk tales and not literary, because despite all the previously mentioned they have an origin in the oral tradition and are attached to a cultural identity.
By 1882 there was already so many tales collected by so many authors that German writer Mite Kremnitz (1852-1916) published that year the collection Rumänische Märchen. Although a good portion of the tales were collected by Ispirescu, the book also included tales by Creangă, Slavici and Pompiliu translated to German. The collection was a great success, being translated to English in 1885 by J.M. Percival. It must be mentioned that the English edition only has 18 of the 20 tales the original German edition has.
Back in Romania, new collections appeared. Among the most important collectors there was Dumitru Stăncescu (1866-1899), who strongly influenced by Ispirescu published his first collection Basme culese din popor in 1885. In the subsequent years he published several collections. Unfortunately his prolific literary work was stopped abruptly when he died at the age of just 33. Ion Pop-Reteganul (1853-1905) was another prolific figure, whose forst collection, titled Povești ardelenești din popor adunate, was pubished in 1888. Becuase of the quantity of tales collected and published in Romania by the 1890s, comparative studies started to be published. Lazăr Șăineanu (1859-1934) is deemed by many as a key figure of fairy tales comparative studies not only in Romania but internationally. Despite his contributions, because of the persecution he suffered because of his Jewish ancestry he left Romania in 1901 to live in France, where he died.
20th Century[]
Although not as many as the Soviet and the Czechoslovakian film industry had, the Romanian film industry also released movies based on their own fairy tales during the Cold War. Among them we should mention Tinerețe fără bătrânețe by Elisabeta Bostan and Nicolae Codrescu, based on Ispirescu's Youth Without Age and Life Without Death and released in 1969; and Povestea dragostei by Ion Popescu-Gopo, based on Creangă's Povestea porcului and released in 1977.