Historical science in the USSR. Reviews. DIMITRI CANTEMIR. DESCRIPTION OF MOLDOVA Author: Chisinau. Kartya moldavenyaske Publishing House, 1973, 222 pages. Mintage 12,000. Price 49 kopecks. On October 26, 1973, the scientific community celebrated the 300th anniversary of the birth of Dimitri Cantemir, an outstanding scholar-encyclopedist and educator, a prominent statesman of the early 18th century, an associate of Peter I, the Moldavian ruler. His contribution to European and Russian science is enormous. He is the author of The History of the Rise and Fall of the Ottoman Empire, published in English (in 1734), French (in 1743) and German (in 1745), which brought him European fame. No less important was another work by D. Cantemir - "Description of Moldavia", first published in German in 1769 in " Magazin fur die neue Historical und Geographical. Hamburg". In 1771. It was published in Frankfurt and Leipzig. In Russia, this work became known in the translation from the German edition of 1769, printed by N. I. Novikov in the university printing house 1 . To mark the 300th anniversary of the birth of D. Cantemir, the first edition of his "Description of Moldavia" was published, prepared from the original manuscripts of the author (translated from Latin by L. Pankratiev). It is preceded by a large introductory article by V. N. Ermuratsky, which describes the socio-political activities of the scientist and patriot, one of the outstanding thinkers of the Moldovan people. "The description of Moldavia", the author emphasizes, "is being translated into Russian for the first time directly from Latin, that is, from the language in which this book was created" (p. XIX). Thus, thanks to V. N. Ermuratsky and L. Pankratiev, Soviet scientists were able to make extensive use of the work of an encyclopedic scholar of the beginning of the XVIII century, which covers the history of Moldova from ancient times to the beginning of the XVIII century, showing its political structure, the s ... Read more