48 Facts About Pantazi Ghica

Pantazi Ghica began his political career as a participant in the Wallachian Revolution of 1848, a collaborator of the Romantic historian and activist Nicolae Balcescu, and a member of the radical grouping headed by C A Rosetti.

Pantazi Ghica is most likely one of the unnamed liberal politicians who are negatively portrayed in Eminescu's poem Scrisoarea a III-a.

Pantazi Ghica was the twelfth of fifteen children born to Ban Dimitrie Ghica and his wife Maria Campineanu.

Ion, Pantazi, Temistocle and Maria Ghica were the only four children to survive into adulthood.

Pantazi Ghica was assigned the task of spreading propaganda in the counties of Buzau and Prahova.

The younger Pantazi Ghica again settled in Paris, were his mother Maria was still residing.

Pantazi Ghica attended high society meetings, and befriended a tenor at the Opera National de Paris.

Pantazi Ghica probably studied for a while at the University of Paris' Law Faculty, but it is unclear whether he ever completed his education.

Records of the events show that the matter of his marriage was only settled at the end of a long debate: the Romanian Orthodox Pantazi Ghica initially consented to have his children baptized Catholic, and then retracted his statement, leaving Archbishop Sibour to consent after obtaining a less compelling verbal agreement from him.

The brothers Pantazi Ghica returned to Bucharest separately during the late 1850s.

Ion Pantazi Ghica, who was promoted Bey of Samos Island in 1854, unsuccessfully applied for the office of Wallachian Prince during 1858, and later rose to ministerial offices.

Pantazi Ghica subsequently became one of the main liberal activists, and rallied with its most radical wing, that headed by Rosetti.

Pantazi Ghica returned to his practice, and, in 1861, was a legal representative for people arrested during the anti-unionist riots in Craiova.

In 1859, Pantazi Ghica joined Dimitrie Bolintineanu in editing the journal Dambovita, but, just a year later, his articles were the subject of a scandal, and he was arrested for allegedly breaking the ethics of journalism.

Pantazi Ghica was an associate of the writer Alexandru Odobescu, and, after 1861, collaborated on his monthly literary magazine Revista Romana.

Pantazi Ghica was again involved in a trial for calumny, but he was able to prove that the incriminated article was not his.

Apparently, Pantazi Ghica had played a secondary part in the conspiracy that toppled Cuza, as a local commander of the Citizens' Guard.

Pantazi Ghica was assigned the office of Buzau County prefect by the first of his brother's cabinets.

Pantazi Ghica returned to the capital, where he purchased a villa on Cometei Street, nearby Piata Romana.

Pantazi Ghica notably associated with the much younger Symbolist poet Alexandru Macedonski, who was his neighbor.

In 1875, Pantazi Ghica was witness to a scandal involving the Romanian Army and Ion Emanuel Florescu, the Minister of War.

Later, Pantazi Ghica published essays in Macedonski's newly founded and more prestigious magazine, Literatorul.

Pantazi Ghica was for long a member of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, representing the "Red" liberal tendency and, late in life, the National Liberals.

In opening the case, Pantazi Ghica stated: "It wasn't just us who condemned those ministers, but public opinion in general, the entire country, cast a blame on them, and we are the expression of that blame".

In June 1881, promoting the designs of one Traian Theodorescu, Pantazi Ghica unsuccessfully presented Parliament with a proposal to have a submarine built for the Romanian Navy.

Pantazi Ghica died at his house on Cometei Street, and was buried at his family's estate in Ghergani.

Pantazi Ghica published the first of his many Romantic novellas by the 1860s, when he collaborated on Odobescu's magazine.

Pantazi Ghica was opposed to Macedonski's notion of "sublime absurdity", arguing that the definitive criterion for creating poetic imagery was significance, and proposing elements of didacticism to feature in every work.

Pantazi Ghica's work of hidden memoirs, the novella Un boem roman, was a tale of adventure and unrequited love: its main character, Paul, whose adventures mirror many in Pantazi Ghica's life, elopes with a married woman, only to find that she is not faithful to him either.

In 1850, Pantazi Ghica authored a piece in honor of the deceased poet Vasile Carlova, titled O lacrima a poetului Carlova.

Pantazi Ghica was outraged to find that the National Theater did not accept his play, and, as a consequence, issued a formal protest.

Pantazi Ghica contributed several romantic comedies, including, among others, Iades and Sterian Patitul.

Pantazi Ghica is the most likely author of a piece sometimes attributed to his brother, in which the author explores the literary legacy of Don Juan.

Pantazi Ghica's works were among those discussed by Junimeas Titu Maiorescu in his famous essay of 1873, Betia de cuvinte.

Maiorescu sarcastically recorded that Pantazi Ghica was introducing new words to the Romanian lexis, through the means of Francization.

Pantazi Ghica noted the implicit tautology in Ghica's term silentiu lugubru, pointing out that the first word covered the meaning of "silent".

Odobescu hinted that he agreed with this assessment, stressing that Alexandre Dumas and Alfred de Musset had since died, and thus could not confirm that Pantazi Ghica had befriended them.

Pantazi Ghica noted, like the Junimists, that the chronological order indicated by Ghica was spurious.

Pantazi Ghica was unnerved by Maiorescu's reaction to his work, and verbally attacked the younger literary critic in several contexts spanning his career.

On one occasion, Pantazi Ghica depicted Maiorescu as "a sort of a literary trickster", and himself claimed that his adversary was "at odds with grammar".

Maiorescu's verdicts on Pantazi Ghica were shared by more modern Romanian critics.

Pantazi Ghica commented that the scandal was largely owed to the victim's father having made use of his political connections with the Ion Bratianu cabinet, and protested when the teacher assigned a provincial post as a punitive measure.

The story went that the Pantazi Ghica caressed Pitiriga, causing the latter to become indignant and thus reveal his true identity.

Pantazi Ghica, who was charged with organizing the event, allegedly thought he could gain more favor with the monarch by using a bear which, unbeknown to Carol, had been previously tamed by Romani trainers.

Carol found out that this was the case, and, feeling insulted, ordered Pantazi Ghica to be relieved from his office of prefect.

The short-lived magazine Satyrul once accused Pantazi Ghica of having plagiarized for his Iades, and of having only added a dog as a character to separate his text from the source.

Jokes about his medical condition even made it into the Chamber: a fellow deputy once made a public reference to Pantazi Ghica's arched spine, to which Ghica replied that it seemed arched because he only presented such colleagues with his back.

In 2010, researcher Radu Cernatescu proposed that Pantazi Ghica is the inspiration behind Gore Pirgu, the prototype social climber depicted in Craii de Curtea-Veche novel.