A collection of poems belonging to Alexei Mateevici—which were found in a notebook dated to 1917 when he was a military priest on the WWI front in the Romanian Carpathians—was included in a volume launched today, August 23, on the death anniversary of the poet and author who gave Moldova its anthem.

The book was published by Vasile Malanetchi, the director of the Romanian Literature Museum “Mihail Kogalniceanu”.

The volume includes nine poems found in the notebook, including Limba Noastra/Our Language, which many years later became the national anthem of Moldova.

“We’ve had this notebook in our Museum since 1992 or so. The writing was done with an ink pencil. With time the ink tends to fade, losing its intensity and clarity, which will imminently render the content illegible one day”, said Malanetchi.

The volume was published in 500 copies and will be disttibuted to anyone interested in Mateevici’s work.