Ten years since death of well-known Moldovan linguist, publicist marked

Chisinau, 29 October /MOLDPRES/ - Ten years have passed since the departure of philologist, linguist, translator, publicist, culture man, holder of the Order of the Republic, former MP of Moldova’s parliament Valentin Mandacanu.   

Valentin Mandacanu was the author of an essay promoting the return of the Romanian language to the Latin script in Moldova. The essay was published in the Nistru (Dniester) magazine in April 1988, which started the National Liberation Movement, becoming a symbol of this Movement.  Valentin Mandacanu was born in the Mihaileni commune, Balti county, presently Rascani district, on 27 July 1930.  Son of Roman Mandacanu, the headmaster of the school where a world famous linguist, Eugen Coseriu, had studied, Mandacanu finished three forms of the Ion Creanga Lyceum from Balti, after which he took refuge to Craiova, Romania, along with his parents, in 1944. After the graduation of the Chisinau-based Pedagogical Institute (1955), Mandacanu worked as teacher at the Pedagogical School from Calarasi. In 1966, he was employed as editor-stylist at the Moldova magazine.       

Valentin Mandacanu made his depute with the volume Exprimarea corectă (Corect Expression) (1967). Later on, he worked as translator at the Telegraphic Agency of Moldova (ATEM), presently the MOLDPRES, State News Agency and then employee at the Moldovan Soviet Encyclopedia (1979), where he was dismissed, accused of the ‘’Romanianization’’ of the language. Specialists in the field say that Mandacanu’s volume, Fit Word at the Fit Place (1979, 1987) proved extremely opportune in the work of promotion and cultivation of the Romanian language in Moldova.  Mandacanu also edited the books titled,  Între acasă şi acasă (Between At Home and At Home) (2000) and Spărturi în gheața tăcerii (Breaches in the Ice of Silence)  (2008).

In 2010, Valentin Mandacanu was awarded the Order of the Republic, for special merits in the assertion of the scientific truth and of the national spiritual values, as well as for prodigious literary and journalistic activity. In his capacity of lawmaker in Moldova’s parliament, Mandacanu voted for the Declaration of Independence of this country.   

Valentin Mandacanu died at the age of 82 years on 29 Octobers 2012.