51 Facts About Gheorghe Asachi

Gheorghe Asachi thus came to clash with representatives of the liberal current, and opposed both the Moldavian revolution of 1848 and the country's union with Wallachia.

Gheorghe Asachi was noted for his deep connections with Western culture, which led him to support the employment of foreign experts in various fields and educational institutions.

Gheorghe Asachi cultivated a relationship with the French historian Edgar Quinet, whose father-in-law he became in 1852.

Gheorghe Asachi was born in Herta, a small town which is part of Ukraine.

Gheorghe Asachi's family originated in Austrian-ruled Transylvania, where it was known under the name Asachievici.

Gheorghe Asachi's father, Lazar, was an Orthodox priest who kept close contacts with Metropolitan Veniamin Costachi; according to several sources, he was of Armenian descent.

Gheorghe Asachi studied at the Faculty of Letters, Philosophy and Sciences, but, in 1804, after two years of studies, he withdrew and returned to Moldavia.

Gheorghe Asachi's return followed the death of his mother and Lazar Asachi's appointment as First Protopope of the Moldavian Metropolitan Seat, and saw the family settling in Iasi.

In early 1805, Gheorghe Asachi fell ill with malaria, and was helped by Metropolitan Veniamin to travel to Vienna, where doctors had advised him to seek treatment.

In 1808, as the Russo-Turkish War erupted, Moldavia was occupied by the Russian Empire, First Protopope Lazar contacted Pavel Chichagov to have his son appointed lieutenant and local head of the Corps of Engineers, but Gheorghe Asachi refused to assume office or even return from Vienna.

Gheorghe Asachi later stressed that she had been a major source of inspiration for him, especially in allowing him the transition "from painter to poet", while the literary critic Eugen Lovinescu believed she inspired Asachi's Romantic nationalism.

Interested in the origin of the Romanians and the history of Roman Dacia, Gheorghe Asachi studied events depicted on Trajan's Column and searched the Vatican Library for documents regarding the history of Romania.

Partly as a result of this encouragement, Gheorghe Asachi decided to travel back home on 22 June 1812, and, sailing down to Galati, arrived in Iasi on 30 August.

Gheorghe Asachi's designs regarding French protection over the Danubian Principalities were ended by Napoleon's retreat from Russia, and by the restoration of Ottoman suzerainty and Phanariote rule, when Sultan Mahmud II appointed Scarlat Callimachi as Prince.

In reaction to these developments, Gheorghe Asachi centered his attention on cultural improvements, Westernization, and Enlightenment teachings, with support from Metropolitan Veniamin.

Gheorghe Asachi gave various lectures, and offered additional training in drawing and art history, as well as in Romanian history.

Gheorghe Asachi organized several exhibits of his students' work in technical drawing.

Nevertheless, Gheorghe Asachi was not stripped of his professorship, and was allowed to maintain both his position as head of the Princely Library and his house on Academy grounds.

Early in 1821, Gheorghe Asachi's activities were interrupted when the Greek Filiki Eteria forces crossed the Prut River and took over Moldavia on their way to Wallachia, during what constituted the earliest stage of the Greek War of Independence.

Gheorghe Asachi returned the following year, as the Ottoman Empire retook the region and put an end to Phanariote rule ; the new prince, Ioan Sturdza, appointed him Moldavian representative to the Austrian Empire, an office which he held between 30 November 1822 and February 1827.

The trade regulations offered by the Regulament were welcomed with enthusiasm by Gheorghe Asachi, prompting him to write an ode in their honor, titled Annul nou al moldo-romanilor 1830, in care s-a lucrat Regulamentul organic, acel intai cod administrativ al Moldovei.

In sharp contrast to his later advocacy, Gheorghe Asachi attempted to introduce provisions for the two Principalities' union, and some of his interventions in the text were meant to facilitate this project.

Gheorghe Asachi was deeply impressed by the institutions he saw functioning in the Russian capital, and did his best to replicate them in Moldavia.

An 1852 survey showed that Gheorghe Asachi had a second, smaller, house in downtown Iasi.

Gheorghe Asachi was the person behind the creation of the Iasi School of Arts and Crafts, as well as helping establish the first public library, the paper mill near Piatra Neamt, an art gallery, and a National History Museum.

Also in 1848, Gheorghe Asachi lost his daughter, the 19-year-old Eufrosina, to the cholera outbreak.

Gheorghe Asachi, who resigned his positions as inspector and archivist in 1849, was awarded a substantial pension.

Gheorghe Asachi was himself a candidate in the Iasi electoral college, receiving 197 votes and placing second among the representatives it sent to the Divan.

Gheorghe Asachi's magazine stood alone in claiming that the regime had acted impartially.

Gheorghe Asachi was no longer elected a deputy, and his candidature for the position of secretary of the electoral board was awarded just one vote.

Nevertheless, as Domnitor Cuza was deposed and the election of a foreign ruler over the Romanian Principality was being assessed, it is probable that Gheorghe Asachi again switched to a separatist stance: on 14 April 1866, after an incident during which Iasi crowds protested the prolongation of unification beyond Cuza's reign, he was the subject of an inquiry on charges of sedition.

Gheorghe Asachi continued to depend on loans in order to feed his family, and unsuccessfully offered Institutul Albinei to be purchased by the state.

Gheorghe Asachi died several months later in Iasi, and was buried at the Patruzeci de Sfinti Church.

The literary critic Garabet Ibraileanu concluded that Gheorghe Asachi's literature signified a transition between a Classicist stage exemplified by Costache Conachi and younger Romantics such as Vasile Alecsandri and Dimitrie Bolintineanu.

Gheorghe Asachi recommended his students to study Italian literature, and would frown upon models inspired by French literature.

Gheorghe Asachi's works included poems, the first of which were written in Italian, as well as vast array of short stories and novellas, through which Asachi attempted to create a legendary history partly mirroring Romanian mythology.

Gheorghe Asachi's works include romanticized accounts of a journey made by the Cossack Hetman Ivan Mazepa into Moldavia and the life of Ruxandra, daughter of Vasile Lupu and wife of Tymofiy Khmelnytsky, as well as Jijia, where a captured fairy recounts her previous existence as a Christian martyr, and Sirena lacului, where a dishonored maiden, who has turned into a siren, takes revenge on boyar.

In connection with Nicolae Vogoride's policies, Gheorghe Asachi drew on historical subject to counter the calls for unity voiced by Partida Nationala; in addition to the endorsement he gave to the Chronicle of Huru, he emphasized, in an article of June 1857, the campaign led by Stephen the Great into Wallachia, calling for a landmark to be raised in honor of "the vanquisher of the Wallachians".

Gheorghe Asachi's style has been criticized from the time of his debate with other intellectuals of his age, when Mihail Kogalniceanu argued that his lyrical works were mere replicas of foreign models.

Present at the forefront during debates regarding the shape of literary language, Gheorghe Asachi drew criticism for introducing archaisms and marginally used neologisms to the Romanian lexis, as well as for the forms of spelling he encouraged.

Gheorghe Asachi's enduring aversion towards Western neologisms, as well as towards the Latin-based linguistic purism favored by many Transylvanian scholars, made Asachi a predecessor of the Bukovinian academic Aron Pumnul.

However, in his later years, Gheorghe Asachi came to praise and uphold Heliade Radulescu's controversial advocacy in favor of modifying Romanian on the basis of Italian.

Considered, together with the Wallachian Heliade Radulescu, the founder of early Romanian theater, Gheorghe Asachi produced the first staging of a Romanian-language play, first performed for the public on 27 December 1816, at the Ghica family manor.

Extremely popular, Gheorghe Asachi's play was celebrated for helping to counter the perceived xenophily of the early 19th century Moldavian cultural environment.

Gheorghe Asachi centered his energies on introducing Romantic nationalist themes and popularizing new trends.

Gheorghe Asachi integrated painting, architecture, and drawing and oil painting in classes taught at Academia Mihaileana, and introduced lithography through the means of his printing press.

Gheorghe Asachi emphasized the educational aspects of, and intended its creations to reach as wide an audience as possible.

Gheorghe Asachi himself is known to have sketched out works which were completed by his foreign collaborators or students.

Alexandru Gheorghe Asachi, who joined the Romanian Army and became an officer, was himself known as an artist: a lithographer and author of historical works, he published several albums of hand-colored prints during the 1850s.

In 1835, Hermiona Gheorghe Asachi fell in love with Alexandru, the underage son of former Prince Alexander Mourousis, who soon after moved into Gheorghe Asachi's house; this scandalized other members of the Mourousis family, and the conflict was ended only when the two youths agreed to marry.

Gheorghe Asachi laid out the plan for a monument honoring Regulamentul Organic, completed by the Russian artist Sungurov with workforce hired from Galicia, and raised on Copou as the first structure of its kind in Moldavia.