Ștefan Bezdechi and Classical Studies in the University of Cluj’s First Romanian Decade

The first half of the twentieth century was crucial for the formation of modern Romanian education and culture, including in the field of classical studies. The year 1919 was one of transformation, marked by the reorganization of the former Hungarian Royal University “Francisc Iosef” as a Romanian university, where the study of the ancient Greek and Latin languages, literatures, and cultures was con-sidered essential not only to the advancement of Romanian educa-tion in Transylvania but also to the identity of the newly united na-tion, integral to its social and cultural progress. Together with his professors and colleagues, Ștefan Bezdechi contributed through his teaching and philological work to inspiring students and training au-thentic classicists, in order to promote excellence in Romanian liter-ary culture. His intellectual curiosity encompassed all periods and genres of ancient Greek literature, Byzantine hagiographic literature, and—no less—Neo-Greek lyric poetry from the nineteenth century to the early twentieth century. The themes he approached are ar-borescent in conception: the philological and historiographic threads are braided with philosophical, ethical, and aesthetic issues, all inter-twined within a historical and social perspective that approximates the life and thought of a world that, although it reaches us only through its literary documents, endures in posterity.