The author provides a brief overview of the life and scientific activity of the distinguished Romanian linguist Zamfira Mihail. Born in Chișinău, in the family of priest Paul and Eugenia Mihai, she sought refuge in Romania, after USSR had annexed Bessarabia. All her life, she worked as a researcher at the Institute of Linguistics, History of Literature and Folklore in Iași, and later at the Institute of South-East European Studies in Bucharest. Zamfira Mihail practiced philology in a wide sense of this term, i.e. including the study of the language, history, culture, and identity of the Romanians, con sidered in the context of South-Eastern Europe. Together with her father, the famous historian Paul Mihail, she published important works concern ing the Romanian culture from Bessarabia, especially during the 19th cen tury. The present article is followed by a bibliography of Zamfira Mihail’s works dedicated to Bessarabia.