Nicolae Densușianu (; 18 April 1846 – 24 March 1911) was a Transylvanian, later Romanian ethnologist and collector of Romanian folklore. He was a corresponding member of the Romanian Academy, with a specialty in history. His main work, for which he is chiefly remembered, was the posthumously printed Dacia Preistorică (1913), with a preface contributed by C. I. Istrati; a facsimile edition was published in 2002 by Editura Arhetip, Bucharest. In Dacia Preistorică Densușianu combined the studies of folklore and comparative religion with archaeology to construct a theory about the Prehistoric cultures of Dacia. The work has drawn criticism for unprofessionalism and evidence of nationalism, and for standing at the source of Dacianism. Mainstream scholars regarded his book as fanciful and unscientific. His works hypothesize the existence of a Dacian-centered "Pelasgian Empire", created in the 6th millennium BC, and which, he claimed, was governed by Uranus and Saturn and comprised all of Europe. Densușianu, who believed that Latin was a dialect of Dacian, also argued that the Dacians migrated to the Italian Peninsula in the Antiquity, where they laid the foundations of Ancient Rome. Biography Born in the village of Densuș, in Transylvania, which at that time was part of Austria-Hungary, he was raised in a Romanian cultural environment. Around 1867, he met the adolescent Moldavian-born Romanian Mihai Eminescu, later known as a major poet, who had fled his father's home and was traveling aimlessly throughout Transylvania. Densușianu and Eminescu were acquainted in Sibiu, where the latter was living in extreme poverty. Soon after, Eminescu crossed the Southern Carpathians and settled in the Old Kingdom. Having received his law degree from the University of Sibiu (1872), he practiced law at Făgăraș, then Brașov, then in other parts of the region. In 1877, at the beginning of the Russo-Turkish War, he returned to Romania and received citizenship in the newly independent state. In Bucharest, attached to the Court of Appeal, Densușianu became involved with the nationalistic movement in favor of a Greater Romania. He published — in French, for a wider audience — L'element Latin en orient. Les Roumains du Sud: Macedoine, Thessalie, Epire, Thrace, Albanie, avec une carte ethnographique ("The Latin element in the east. The Romanians of the South: Macedonia, Thessaly, Epirus, Thrace, Albania, with an ethnographic map"). In 1878 he received a commission from the Romanian Academy to research and collect historical documents in the libraries and archives