Cine-au îndrăgit străinii Mânca-i-ar inima câinii [...] He to whom foreigners are dear Let the dogs eat his heart [...] —translation by James Christian Brown, in Boia, p. 59 The ending of Doina is Eminescu's contribution to a "trans-historical"[2] cult of Prince Stephen, who had consolidated Moldavia's statehood in the 15th century:

[13] He never actually attended the unveiling of Stephen's statue, either because he feared his apparent collapse would generate gossip and public ridicule, or because an old enemy, Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu, had announced his participation;[14] he did however show up for parallel ceremonies at Junimea society.

[22] However, he dates the earliest recognizable drafts of Doina to 1878, and Eminescu's anger over the Berlin Treaty, which awarded Southern Bessarabia (the Budjak) to Russia, noting parallels with the author's political columns, taken up by Timpul in the early 1880s.

[23] According to Perpessicius, while the poem's references to rail transport may correspond to the unraveling of the Strousberg Affair, Doina is the product of 1878, written "a day after [the Budjak's] cession [...], five years before the celebrations in Iași".

[46] Chief Rabbi Moses Rosen was critical of Eminescu as a political journalist, but noted that his poetic work, which he admired, was free of antisemitism: "Only in his 'From the Dniester to the Tisza' is he a xenophobe, an anti-Russian, and overall an anti-foreigner.

[48] The same was proposed by scholar Petru Zugun, who believes that there is nothing specifically xenophobic or antisemitic about Doina—and that its introductory portion is simply a critique of "unproductive foreigners", some of whom happened to be Jews, immigrating to Bukovina.

[50] Literary historian Leon Volovici also sees Eminescu as guided by an economic theory, but notes his vision of an "objective conflict" between Romanians and foreigners, including in particular Jews (assimilated or not) and Greeks; the "apocalyptic" Doina formed part of that discourse.

Cine ne-au adus Jidanii N'ar vedea ziua cu anii Ci să-i scoată ochii corbii Să rămâe'n drum cu orbii[63] Whoever brought us the kikes May the crows tear out his eyes His sight may he never find, May he roam along the blind The Bukovina themes had appeared in several Eminescu doine, notably including an 1877 stanza in which Eminescu, or his peasant inspiration, describes the region at "the mercy of the foreigner, which is like a thistle's shadow".

[69] Bessarabia in its entirety is introduced as a Romanian grievance in the opening line—according to scholar Aurel Vasiliu, the Dniester–Tisza metonymy was first used by the Bukovinian poet Vasile Bumbac (with whom, he notes, Eminescu had lukewarm relations), while Doina's views on the muscali more closely mirror Cezar Bolliac's satires.

"[66] Trains have first appeared as instruments of corruption in Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu's "Iron Road" (1864), which exegetes such as Liviu Marian saw as "quasi-identical" with the passage in Doina, and which is primarily about the Strousberg scandal.

[77] The same reading is provided by historian Alexandru Zub, who notes Eminescu's descent into pessimism, "just a quarter of a century" after Alecu Russo had declared folklore to be an unalterable, "living book".

He argued that Eminescu's lyrics had conveyed the irrelevancy of art in an era of mass production; he linked Doina to the philosophical essays of Henri Bergson (Creative Evolution) and Étienne Souriau.

[85] Comparatist Grete Tartler proposes that the "famous invocation" deepens folkloric accounts about Stephen as a sleeping hero, on par with Ogier the Dane and Frederick Barbarossa.

[49] Historian Ovidiu Pecican notes that the line about how "woods will come to your aid" could be a reference to peasant republics existing on the forested border areas of old Moldavia, providing a stable levy army.

[95] The first use of Doina as an object of study in academia was I. Manliu's manual of poetics, published in 1890 and heavily indebted to Maiorescu's observations, closely followed in 1893 by Enea Hodoș's reader, aimed at Romanian schoolteachers in the Banat, and by Gheorghe Adamescu's chrestomathy.

[106] The respite of censorship following the Russian Revolution of 1905 ultimately produced a blossoming of the Romanian Bessarabian press, including Cuvânt Moldovenesc—which, in 1913, put out an Eminescu selection, featuring both Doina and Codrule, Măria ta.

La arme was a soldiers' anthem, used for instance during Nerva I. Paul's charge on German positions (October 1916),[110] while Doina was sung by the Lăutar Cristache Ciolac as a "pitiful song of ancient woes".

[115] In interwar Bessarabia, Doina continued to have an especially strong presence as a political symbol and poetic model, while La arme was quoted as an opening text by the literary review Viața Basarabiei.

[127] By 1936, Stelian Popescu of the nationalist paper Universul was reusing the "dogs-eating-hearts" metaphor, printed in red, against his Jewish and left-wing rivals at Adevărul, accusing them of being a front for the Romanian Communist Party.

The paradox was noted by Colonel Gheorghe Eminescu, who complained that Soviet authorities had reinvented his uncle into a "Moldovan" poet while making sure that no one could access either Doina or La arme.

As noted by Creția, Doina had a psychological appeal: "those who hid it under a bushel were mistaken, with this poem preserving a latent life in the national psyche; thus, the censors, instead of attenuating an obsession, have maintained it.

[137] One theory claims that a disillusioned communist poet, Nicolae Labiș, openly recited Doina at a Bucharest locale in autumn 1956, the sign of his conversion to nationalism—a departure for which he was allegedly assassinated.

[140] Writer Dumitru Irimia recalls that, in the early 1960s, Eminescu was la secret ("under lock and key"), primarily quoted with his "Emperor and Proletarian", but also that his high school teacher privately advised him to read Doina.

[142] Pimen Zainea, at the time a monk and tour guide at Putna, recalls that he was never prevented from reciting the poem to local visitors; and that Virgil Radulian, the Minister of Education, specifically asked him to quote Doina for Hungarians and Russians attending the 4th World Festival of Youth and Students.

He further reports that Miu Dobrescu, a communist potentate in Suceava County, would not commit to having Doina republished in textbooks, "as you know how things are between us and our great neighbor in the East", but that he openly encouraged recitations to continue.

[149] In January 1976, critic D. Micu noted in passing that Doina was one of the "patriotic and civic" works whereby Eminescu had established an entire line of succession in Romanian culture—leading down to Goga, Cotruș, and "all things viable in our current militant poetry.

[151] Discussing classical Romanian literature in April 1982, Mihai Ungheanu and Pompiliu Marcea noted as an "oddity" and "inequity" that Doina could not be fully republished, whereas Constantin Dobrogeanu Gherea's detailed critique of it had seen print in 1956.

[167] Also then, actor Victor Rebengiuc walked into the Romanian Television building and recited the poem in a live broadcast, changing stress from its condemnation of foreigners to read like an attack on people associated with the old regime.

[169] According to Eminescu expert Cornelia Viziteu, there followed a period of "overtly nationalist" readings with "evidently superficial commentary", including popularization of Doina through other television broadcasts.

[170] Doina was again standard reading for seventh-grade students in 2011, a matter which, according to journalist Sorin Șerb, contributed to their cultural isolation: "The Romanian schoolchild doesn't live on Earth, in a universe filled with wonder, but within the borders of a 'national, sovereign, independent, unitary and indivisible state'".