British Writings on Romania: From Travel Accounts to Studies
Authors:
Milan Grba
Affiliation:
European and Americas Collections, The British Library, London, United Kingdom
Abstract:
This article surveys a sample of sources of the information about Romania available to British readers in nineteenth century British newspapers and periodicals. It traces first contacts between the Romanian lands and Britain after the union of the principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia in 1859, then after their independence from the Ottoman Empire. The article highlights an increased Romanian interest in British periodicals, which reported and reviewed Romanian literature and scholarship. The article concludes that nineteenth century British newspapers and periodicals offer a great variety and wealth of new material previously unavailable or unknown to researchers. It also states that only a portion of a large quantity of this material has been indexed and is therefore available via the bibliographic sources mentioned in the article. The author argues for the need of a new and updated British-Romanian bibliography, which can draw on new online resources offering access to thousands of new newspapers and periodical records.