54 Facts About Ioan Bianu

Ioan Bianu was affiliated with the Romanian Academy Library for over half a century, transforming the institution from the meager state in which he found it, and overseeing a five-fold increase of its collection.

Ioan Bianu helped author two important multi-volume works detailing early books and manuscripts from his country, and was a founder of library and information science in his adoptive country.

Ioan Bianu's scholarship was doubled by his work as an organizer in the field, and, especially after 1880, by a participation in political intrigues.

Ioan Bianu was a disciple of Dimitrie Sturdza, joining the latter's National Liberal Party and canvassing support in academia.

Ioan Bianu continued to agitate among the Transylvanian Romanians, but, by 1896, both he and Sturdza had turned moderate on the national issue, and favored a rapprochement with Austria-Hungary.

Ioan Bianu remained in German-occupied territory following the fall of Bucharest, but was spared persecution upon the end of war.

The Ioan Bianu family was an old peasant one of some means, the village a small Romanian one on a hillside.

Ioan Bianu was taught reading and writing by his grandfather, then attended primary school in his native village.

Ioan Bianu's father understood the importance of schooling, even if this implied material sacrifices, and the boy studied for nearly a decade at the gymnasium and the Romanian high school in Blaj.

Ioan Bianu lived with one of his teachers, Ioan Micu Moldovan, who helped provide for his daily needs and with whom the former pupil kept touch until the teacher's death in 1915.

Ioan Bianu graduated in 1876, in the same class as his cousin Vasile Ioan Bianu, the future physician and political figure.

Ioan Bianu was thus able to support himself until 1880 while attending the literature and philosophy faculty of the University of Bucharest.

Ioan Bianu's teachers included several of Hasdeu's personal friends, the Slavists Vatroslav Jagic, Louis Leger, and Graziadio Isaia Ascoli.

Ioan Bianu met the Romanist Emile Picot, took courses with Gaston Paris, but the lasting impact of his sojourn lay in the eye-opening visits to libraries.

Ioan Bianu still made visits abroad: in 1885, he spent time in Galicia-Lodomeria, researching the Jagiellonian Library for Romanian-related subjects, the Ossolinski archive at Lemberg, and the Dosoftei fund at Schowkwa.

In 1888, Ioan Bianu began his collaboration with Hasdeu's neoromantic literary review, Revista Noua.

Ioan Bianu contributed the book review column, as well as a biography of the writer Gheorghe Asachi.

Ioan Bianu was later elected dean of the literature faculty.

Meanwhile, a member of the National Liberal Party and auditor of its Bucharest club, Ioan Bianu was an ally of Dimitrie Sturdza and reached the Assembly of Deputies.

From as early as 1887, he interceded between Sturdza and PNL-friendly academics, including the Slavist Ioan Bianu Bogdan, obtaining their support against rival Conservatives, and helping them travel for specialization abroad.

However, Ioan Bianu preserved links with the Conservatives' literary club, Junimea, which he frequented as an outside guest in the 1880s.

Ioan Bianu was initially an orthodox Romanian nationalist, campaigning for unity between Romania and his native Transylvania.

In 1892, Ioan Bianu joined the executive committee of the Cultural League for the Unity of All Romanians and began sending out sponsorships to the leaders of the Transylvanian Memorandum protest movement.

In 1896, with Sturdza as Prime Minister, Ioan Bianu participated in the rapprochement with Austria-Hungary.

Ioan Bianu continued to work for the Bucharest National Liberal club during the next decade, helping Sturdza win over Junimea from the Conservatives.

Ioan Bianu used his influence for advancing many other scholarly goals, such as when, in 1909, he brought to Romania Ramiro Ortiz, who founded the Bucharest school of Italian studies.

In parallel, Ioan Bianu preserved links with the Romanians living in Russia's Bessarabia Governorate: through his correspondence with Stefan Ciobanu, he was informed of Russification in that province.

Ioan Bianu stifled his opposition, but did not openly criticize all the Central Powers.

Also controversially, Ioan Bianu Sr chose not to join the exodus, and remained with the Germanophiles and neutralists in occupied Bucharest, to 1918.

Ioan Bianu sided with Carp in his critique of PNL politics, but, unlike him and Beldiman, did not call for the dethronement of King Ferdinand.

Ioan Bianu refrained from signing up to Carp's openly pro-German platform.

The Austro-Hungarian Army asked Ioan Bianu to vouch for officer Alexandru Leca Morariu, who was accused of being secretly a Romanian nationalist agitator.

Ioan Bianu scandalized public opinion further after ordering public mourning at the academy after the death of a pro-Austrian cleric, Vasile Mangra.

In May 1919, Ioan Bianu joined efforts with Iorga and other pro-Entente academicians in order to obtain the international recognition of Romania's new borders.

In September 1919, Ioan Bianu was the official rapporteur assessing whether Alexandru Davila's play, Vlaicu Voda, was worthy of an academy prize; he deemed it unsuitable, after noting that Davila did not adhere to the verified historical narrative.

Ioan Bianu joined the Transylvanian-based Romanian National Party ahead of the November 1919 election, taking a seat in the Assembly for Tarnava-Mica County.

Ioan Bianu used his intermediary position to negotiate a PNR presence at Alba Iulia, where Ferdinand crowned himself King of Greater Romania, but was unable to convince Alexandru Vaida-Voevod.

Ioan Bianu's time was divided between Bucharest and Predeal, where, in 1912, he had built himself a villa.

In 1924, Ioan Bianu helped organize Romania's first national congress of librarians, and later that year founded the country's first librarians' association, alongside a Romanian Practical School of Archival Science, modeled on the Ecole Nationale des Chartes.

Ioan Bianu was unusually selected by Aristide Blank's publishing house, Cultura Nationala, to oversee a collection of Romanian city monographs.

Ioan Bianu continued to intervene politically for his various proteges, including the literary critic Gheorghe Bogdan-Duica and the linguist Theodor Capidan, and steered the career of philologist Alexandru Rosetti.

Ioan Bianu reluctantly presented himself as a candidate for the post of academy president, but lost by a large margin to Emil Racovita.

Ioan Bianu's teaching hampered by a progressive deafness, which had begun much earlier in life, Bianu withdrew from the university in mid 1928, resigning his seat to his disciple, folklorist Dumitru Caracostea.

Ioan Bianu resigned later that year, but continued to serve as vice president to his death.

Ioan Bianu's body was laid in state at the academy, and the Faculty of Letters marked the occasion by suspending courses for the day.

Ioan Bianu was buried alongside Alexandrina Bianu in Plot 54 of Bellu Cemetery.

Ioan Bianu's first publication, in 1876, was a monograph on Samuil Micu-Klein.

Ioan Bianu helped counter the lack of manuscripts, old books and documents on the language and national history by initiating an ample campaign for identifying and donating such materials.

Ioan Bianu ensured that the Academy Library became the National Library and helped merge the Central State Library into this institution in 1901, later folding in a number of private libraries.

Ioan Bianu pushed for an 1884 law mandating printing presses to send two copies of everything they printed to the Academy Library, and was behind improvements to the law in 1904.

Ioan Bianu authored a number of works on philology as well as history, particularly cultural history.

Ioan Bianu published a number of other books on early Romanian literature as well as textual editions, including Psaltirea Scheiana and, in 1924, the newly discovered Codicele de la Ieud.

Additionally, Ioan Bianu was responsible for Cresterea Colectiunilor, the academy's bibliographic periodical, which between 1906 and 1929 chronicled the publications received by the library.

Ioan Bianu's date of birth is usually given as September 8 or October 1,1856, although it is possible he was born in 1857; a date of February 20 has been proposed.