Abstract

The paper discusses a manuscript book – known in a copy made by the priest Sava Popovici (1735-1808) from Rășinari in the year 1785 –, which was described in 1912 and 1915. Its trace was completely lost afterwards and it attracted attention only once, in a marginal way. Our research has led to the identification of the original – a Russian introductory book for the students of the Saint Petersburg academic gymnasium – and to a plausible proposal for its anonymous author: the Prussian astronomer Christian Nicolaus von Winsheim (1694-1751), who was teaching after the famous schoolbook of Johann Hübner. We are also proposing the most probable author of the translation: the schoolmaster Radu Duma (174?-1791) from Brașov. Its final sections discuss the image of India as described in its chapter on Asia and, respectively, its probable use as a textbook in a number of schools from the South-Eastern part of Transylvania: Brașov, Rășinari, and Sibiu.

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