#The Battle of Rovine

The reign of Mircea the Elder (1386–1418) is critically re-examined in relation to Petre P. Panaitescu’s 1944 monograph and the academic treatise Istoria Românilor, vol. IV (2012), demonstrating that Wallachia was a Crusader principality covering an area of over 100,000 km², that Dobruja was not lost during his reign, and that there is no evidence that Mircea paid tribute to the Ottomans.

Mihai Eminescu's poem centering on Mircea the Elder and Bayezid is analyzed through the lens of Aeschylean hubris theory, tracing how the sultan's transgression of cosmic boundaries — marked by the Danube as a symbolic limes — triggers the reversal of his own heraldic signs and attributes. The study demonstrates how cleidomancy, symmetrical imagery, and elemental animism structure the poem's deeper argument: that Mircea, as instrument of universal order, restores the cosmic equilibrium shattered by Ottoman expansion.

The study analyses the sources and poetic technique in Eminescu’s ‘Letter III’, examining how the Herodotean motifs of Cyrus, Darius and Xerxes, as filtered through Jordanes and Aeschylus, structure Mircea’s address to Bayezid as an apotropaic formula, whilst key terms such as ‘towering’, ‘tree’, ‘earth’ and ‘water’ are stylistically adapted to turn the invader’s symbols against him.

D. Caracostea’s study analyses the literary and historical sources of Eminescu’s ‘Letter III’, examining the influences of Aeschylus, Herodotus and the manuscript translation from Coșula Monastery on the poetic structure of the dialogue between Mircea and Bayezid. Using a comparative approach, the author demonstrates that the poem’s organic vision synthesises ancient models and medieval Romanian chronicles, going beyond a mere borrowing of text.

The article calls for the restoration of the historical image of Mircea the Great ahead of the January 2018 commemoration marking six centuries since his death, refuting the argument put forward in the article by Marius Diaconescu published in the journal Historia. It traces the stages of the historiographical debate concerning the voivode’s epithet, from Dimitre Onciul to recent efforts to canonise the founder of Cozia.