Gheorghe Șincai (1754-1816)

The radio club of our school is named after the great scholar Gheorghe Șincai,  director of Romanian Greek-Catholic schools in Transylvania, fighter for the rights of Transylvanian Romanians, historian, philologist, translator, representative of the Transylvanian School (Școala Ardeleană).

Gheorghe Șincai was born in 1754 in Râciu - a village that is now in Mureș county, Romania. The place where he was born is 1 km far from our radio club.

https://www.qrz.com/db/yo6kgs

He is best known for the fact that he founded more than 370 Romanian schools in Transylvania and wrote the first history of all Romanians - ”Hronica Românilor și a mai multor neamuri...” - ”The Chronicle of the Romanians and of several nations...”  

In the picture: Gheorghe Șincai (painted by Bacali Radu Călin -teacher)

* In 1774 he received a scholarship to Rome, where due to the fact that he studied well, he was taken under the protection of Cardinal Stefan Borgia, who was secretary of De Propaganda Fide College. He appointed Sincai custodian of the library of this institution, and then asked and obtained for him from Pope Pius VI the favor of being able to visit the libraries of the Vatican, Sopra la Minerva and Benedictina. Sincai also received a specialist to guide him through the libraries. Borgia showed him the books about Romanians.

* During his time as principal of schools in Transylvania, he opened more than 370 new Romanian schools. During this time, not only did he inspect the schools, but he collected any documents that referred to Romanians. He began to write "The Chronicle of the Romanians and of several nations in how much they were mixed with the Romanians, how the things, events and deeds ... "

* In 1803 Şincai went to Buda(Pest), where together with Samuil Micu he worked feverishly, gathering documents and interpreting the facts described in them, but S. Micu died, and Gheorghe Şincai remained to continue the work alone. He thus printed the Buda Calendar, at the end of which he published, in 1807, "The History of the Romanians". In the following years, he published in the same calendar and in the same way fragments from "Hronica românilor ...", until finally it was banned by censorship.

* In 1811 Şincai appears in Oradea, where he is well received by Samuil Vulcan. Here he will work diligently on "Hronica Românilor ...", writing only about the period until 1739, when he stops, for fear of upsetting the authorities and not arousing his enemies. In 1812 he went on foot to Blaj, carrying bags of documents and manuscripts on his back. After finishing the Chronicle of the Romanians, Şincai disappeared without anyone knowing where he took it. He was last seen in Transylvania in 1814, then no one found out about him, not even when he died.

* It was found out only late that Gheorghe Şincai died on the estate of Count Vass, near Košice, in Svinica in Slovakia, on November 2, 1816.

* Many of his works are known only by title because they were lost. These include "Dialogue", a Romanian grammar, a Romanian dictionary and a Daco-Romanian one.