The first international journal of comparative literary studies, entitled Acta Comparationis Litterarum Universarum (1877-1888), was published in Kolozsvár/Cluj/Klausenburg (in former Hungary, today in Romania). The research on the pioneering multilingual journal usually foregrounds only one of the editors, Hugo von Meltzl, the young university profesor of German, French and Italian studies at the local university. But there is another subversive and experienced founder of the journal, Sámuel Brassai, university professor of Mathematics and Comparative Linguistics, a well-known polymath and innovator, an early theoretician of translation studies. The paper sketches a brief scholarly portrait of Brassai, and explains his paramount influence on the early years of the Acta Comparationis Litterarum Universarum.