“He would have been a great poet if he had lived,” George Calinescu

At the end of August 1917, about 72 years before Romanian became the official language of Moldova, Alexe Mateevici, one of the most valuable poets of this land who bequeathed the poem “Our Language”, was dying at hospital No. 1 in Chisinau. His poem became the incontestable ode of the Romanian language and later Moldova's anthem, Info-Prim Neo reports. Born in Bessarabia in a family of a priest, Alexe Mateevici lived only 29 years. He took part in the Marasesti fighting and is known as the author of the most beautiful poem dedicated to the mother tongue. A defender of the Romanian language, at the first congress of Bessarbian teachers in May 1917, Alexe Mateevici said: “We must bear in mind that we are Romanians, grandchildren of the Romanians and brothers with the Italians, French, Spanish and Portuguese. We must tell it to our children and all those who are not aware of this. We do not have two languages and two literatures, but only one.” In June 1917, at the opening of courses for teachers, only two months before his premature death, Alexe Mateevici read the poem “Our Language.” “He would have been a great poet if he had lived. Only Eminescu knew how to develop the popular themes so well,” writer George Calinescu said in his “History of Literature from Origins until Present.” Vasile Bahnaru, the head of the Philology Institute of the Academy of Sciences of Moldova, stated for Info-Prim Neo that Alexe Mateevici is one of the remarkable personalities of the Romanian culture in Bessarbia from the start of the 20th century. “He was a great Romanian patriot, who knew very well the Romanian language, literature and history and continued the traditions of Ardeal, where the relations between the intellectuality and the masses were very close,” he said. Alexe Mateevici died from exanthematic typhus on August 13. He was buried at the Central Cemetery situated on Armeneasca St in Chisinau.