Every field of science has its paradigmatic personalities which provide it with reputation and which are the fundamental pillars of its development. Academician Mihai Cimpoi identifies completely with the philological science of the entire Romanian space and with the most valuable achievements that have occurred in contemporary literary science. The author of 70 books and monographic essays and over 3000 articles, the distinguished critic and aesthetician from Bessarabia has established in the literary science of the Republic of Moldova the rigors of valuable judgement, highly talented professionalism and aesthetic autonomy of critical exercise.

Mr. Cimpoi not only is an outstanding creator of literary and criticism outputs, widely appreciated by the renowned experts in the field, but he also is a constant promoter of the values of national culture. The incontestable merit of the distinguished scholar is to modernize the critical approach and to restore the dimensions of aesthetics in a period of ideological obscurantism. Through his research, which has a broad interdisciplinary academic opening, Mihai Cimpoi assured a shift from a literary mentality anchored in proletcultist canons to a mentality based on aesthetics and principles of authentic values. The reintroduction, through critical and hermeneutic exercises, into the cultural space of Bessarabia, of such emblematic literary personalities as M. Eminescu, L. Blaga, C. Brâncuși, I. Heliade Rădulescu has meant for us a chance to get closer to the Romanian cultural matrix and to ease our integration within a literary and cultural horizon different from that of the Soviet Union.

Starting from the literary theories of the most modern systems of philosophy, anthropology, cultural studies, semiotics and linguistics, Academician Mihai Cimpoi has erected his own system, through which he has interpreted the literary work from new angles and engaged himself into a multicultural and interdisciplinary dialogue. Mihai Cimpoi has gathered, ranked and valued the Romanian literature from Bessarabia in the memorable literary history pages, substantially enriching, by means of large-scale syntheses, the national literary panorama.

Valuable research in the field of Eminescology made by Mr. Cimpoi, re-dimensions and amplifies the prospects of receiving Eminescu’s creation, ranking him among the most distinguished eminescologists in the world.

One of the essential contributions of Mr. Academician into the overall Moldovan and Romanian academic environment, alongside with the Encyclopedic Dictionary „Mihai Eminescu” (Chisinau: Gunivas, 2012), is initiating, founding and organizing of the annual World Congress of Eminescologists – a scientific event of an universal scale, which the unrivalled poet’s creation imperiously demands. Through his poetry, prose and journalism, Mihai Eminescu had engaged the Romanian literature and culture in a valuable multicultural dialogue that is why a thorough approach, grounded in the actuality of Eminescu creation, demands the shift from the national exegetical framework and accession into the universal hermeneutic context.

The World Congress of Eminescologists offers a blessed opportunity of meeting the representatives of many cultures and literatures of the world, for a multidimensional approach of Eminescu’s creation. The event gathers for debates the writers, translators, graphic artists, critics and literary scholars of Eminescology from Moldova, Italy, Romania, Germany, Albania, Spain, China, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Russia, Turkey, Ukraine, etc., who will elaborate upon the less researched aspects of Eminescu’s creation, upon the way the poet is translated into the universal literary space and upon the modalities of reception of his creation in different geographical and cultural environments of the world.

Through vast erudition and encyclopedic spirit, academician Mihai Cimpoi has firmly established himself in the perimeter of values of the Romanian culture, his prodigious literary and aesthetic activity placing himself not only among the distinguished eminescologists, but also within the critical consciousness of the whole Romanian space.

Academician Gheorghe Duca,
President of the Academy of Sciences of Moldova