50 Facts About Alexandrina Cantacuzino

Alexandrina "Didina" Cantacuzino was a Romanian political activist, philanthropist and diplomat, one of her country's leading feminists in the 1920s and 1930s.

Sympathetic toward the revolutionary fascist Iron Guard, of which her son Alecu was an affiliate, Alexandrina Cantacuzino switched her support toward Ion Antonescu's government in early 1941.

Alexandrina Cantacuzino died, in relative obscurity, not long after Antonescu's downfall.

Alexandrina Cantacuzino Pallady, known under the pet name Didina, was born in Ciocanesti, a village currently in Dambovita County.

Alexandrina Cantacuzino was by birth a member of the boyar upper-class: her father, Lieutenant Colonel Theodor Pallady, an aristocrat from the eastern region of Moldavia, had earned distinction in the Romanian Land Forces; her mother, named Alexandrina, was a Kretzulescu boyaress from Wallachia, and the heiress of a large estate.

The marriage produced four children in all, but Alexandrina Cantacuzino was the only one to survive infancy.

Alexandrina Cantacuzino's father-in-law was the magistrate, Conservative policymaker and former premier Gheorghe Grigore Cantacuzino.

Alexandrina Cantacuzino was one of the greatest estate-owners in the Kingdom of Romania, known to the general public as Nababul.

Alexandrina Cantacuzino's brother-in-law was Mihail G "Misu" Cantacuzino, who was the minister of justice and the leader of an inner-Conservative faction.

Alexandrina Cantacuzino and Grigore had three sons, all of them born between 1900 and 1905, before both parents resumed their public careers.

In 1910, Alexandrina Cantacuzino joined a Romanian Orthodox philanthropic society, the National Orthodox Society of Romanian Women.

SONFR members included liberal suffragettes, such as Calypso Botez; Alexandrina Cantacuzino herself was less clearly affiliated with this current, although she did describe herself a "feminist".

The immensely large Alexandrina Cantacuzino estate was split between the two sons, both of whom used the Zamora Castle of Busteni.

In 1915, Alexandrina Cantacuzino inherited the properties of her adoptive father, including Ciocanesti.

On several occasions, Alexandrina Cantacuzino stood up to the German authorities and protected SONFR's interests, usually with significant success.

The hospital she managed was eventually evicted by the Germans, and Alexandrina Cantacuzino published a letter a protest; she and her husband spoke up in favor of Conon, the Metropolitan Bishop, who was being pressured into handing in the church administration to Mariu Theodorian-Carada, a Catholic.

Alexandrina Cantacuzino decided to hold a banquet there in honor of Alexandru D Sturdza and other defectors from the loyalist Romanian Army.

In Bucharest, the Marghiloman Conservatives created their own Legislative Commission, with the aim of achieving peace and reconciliation; Grigore Alexandrina Cantacuzino was among its members, but failed to win appointment in the subsequent Marghiloman Cabinet.

Alexandrina Cantacuzino, who witnessed the events, mediated between the disgraced Marghiloman and General Alexandru Averescu, the King's favorite minister, circulating rumors that Romania was prey to revolutionary socialism.

Marghiloman held on to the unpopular "Conservative" title, while Grigore Alexandrina Cantacuzino advised in favor of reforming it as a "Constitutional Party", or merging it into Averescu's more successful People's Party.

Alexandrina Cantacuzino herself became a member of the nation-wide Association for the Civil and Political Emancipation of Romanian Women, and unsuccessfully tried to absorb the smaller League for Women's Rights and Duties into SONFR.

Alexandrina Cantacuzino took up similar activities at SONFR, where she lectured about the Orthodox and nationalist ethos, attracting into society ranks many female members of the middle classes, as well as new arrivals from the province of Bessarabia: Elena Alistar and Iulia Siminel-Dicescu.

Alexandrina Cantacuzino was generally hostile to the ethnic minorities, but interested in finding common ground with feminists from the Transylvanian Saxon and Hungarian communities, inviting them to the women's congress of 1925.

From 1925 to 1936, with a CNFR mandate, Alexandrina Cantacuzino served as Vice President of the International Council of Women, and, as such became Romania's best-known feminist.

Alexandrina Cantacuzino was one of the European delegates to ICW's 1925 Conference in Washington, DC By 1926, her distinctions included the Grand Cross of Queen Marie, the Order of the Holy Sepulchre, the Order of St Sava, the Croix de guerre and the Croce al Merito di Guerra.

Alexandrina Cantacuzino was IWC delegate at the League of Nations in 1927, and again in 1933, as well as IAWSEC rapporteur to the same international body.

Drifting apart from both the LDDF and AECPFR, who accused her of using feminism to advance her own "internationalist" goals, Alexandrina Cantacuzino presided upon Solidaritatea, her very own feminist sorority, enlisting it with IAWSEC as a separate body.

Under the provisions of a law which allowed some women to run in local elections, Alexandrina Cantacuzino served on the Bucharest Financial Commission in 1927, and was a City Councilor after 1928, helping to establish the CNFR-run vocational school for female "social auxiliaries".

Alexandrina Cantacuzino was dividing her time between Bucharest and Zamora Castle, where, in August 1928, her eldest son Gheorghe Grigore married Zoe Greceanu.

Alexandrina Cantacuzino immersed herself in the struggle for electoral emancipation, lobbying for women's right to vote and run in elections for urban and rural citizens' councils.

Alexandrina Cantacuzino was the first-ever woman Officer of the Meritul Cultural Order.

Alexandrina Cantacuzino served as head of the Female Section during the June 1929 International Agricultural Congress.

Alexandrina Cantacuzino was co-opted among the official Romanian representatives to the League of Nations, primarily as adviser on women and child protection.

Alexandrina Cantacuzino was won over by the fascist critique of liberal democracy, and, while still a feminist, began voicing support for an alternative to Romania's own liberal regime.

Alexandrina Cantacuzino envisaged a corporatist monarchy, campaigned for a technocratic public administration service, and favored disfranchising the poorly educated males.

Alexandrina Cantacuzino was vehemently opposed to the other delegates, including Greece's Avra Theodoropoulou, over the issue of admitting women from Bulgaria, Republican Turkey and Albania.

Alexandrina Cantacuzino voiced her ideas in the GFR and CNFR petitions of December 1930 and March 1932, while asking that representatives of women's organizations be assigned seats in the Senate.

Bucur writes that "most feminists, like Alexandrina Cantacuzino, were aggressive, even jingoistic nationalists".

Alexandrina Cantacuzino was not a GFR appointee, but rather an old AECPFR combatant.

Alexandrina Cantacuzino was tasked with improving the livelihoods of children and women affected by the Spanish Civil War, proposing the creation of neutral zones for children, and working on an internationally valid Children's Charter.

At the GFR Congress in Brasov, Alexandrina Cantacuzino publicly complained that her goal of achieving women's suffrage had turned into a bitter victory.

The Iron Guard accepted Alecu, but mistrusted Alexandrina Cantacuzino, seeing her as a dangerous internationalist.

Alexandrina Cantacuzino was placed under surveillance, suspected of having helped the outlawed movement, while her GFR and Tinerele Grupiste were outlawed.

The final stage of Alexandrina Cantacuzino's career covers saw her collateral involvement in the political upheavals of World War II.

At its helm was an army man and political maverick, Conducator Ion Antonescu, on whose behalf Alexandrina Cantacuzino had intervened in the past.

Alexandrina Cantacuzino was not an uncritical affiliate of Antonescu's policies, as she showed during her October 1941 visit Odessa, capital of newly occupied Transnistria.

Pantea reports that Alexandrina Cantacuzino shared his belief that the massacre was going to weigh heavily on "the entire country", and that "an objective inquiry" was needed; he writes that Antonescu threatened to shoot him for disobedience, but that he changed his mind, and even that he lived to regret his order for massacre.

Alexandrina Cantacuzino continued to intervene with Antonescu on other matters, such as when she obtained the naturalization of Pavel Chasovnikov, an Odesan surgeon.

Alexandrina Cantacuzino was survived by Gheorghe Cantacuzino, who pursued a career in archeology, epigraphy, and papyrology; he died in 1977.

The Ciocanesti manor, confiscated from Gheorghe Alexandrina Cantacuzino, was classified as a historical monument and Writers' Union vacation home, but not before being thoroughly devastated by the local trade unions.