“I strove to follow, as much as I could, the form and language of the national Chronicles that have been the rightful pride of the Land of Moldavia; to collect traditions and names and words of old, in order to lend color to these episodes inspired from the old chronicles. The historical deeds of a country or epoch always stir a more lively interest when the life and ideas, the customs and speech from there and then are known to us.”

1860