88 Facts About Vasile Pogor

Vasile V Pogor was a Moldavian, later Romanian poet, philosopher, translator and liberal conservative politician, one of the founders of Junimea literary society.

Vasile Pogor became a civil servant during the United Principalities regime, though he split with its leadership on matters of tax policy, making his fortune as a conspirator in the "monstrous coalition" coup of February 1866.

Vasile Pogor held seats and commissions in the Assembly of Deputies.

In forming Junimea, alongside Titu Maiorescu and others, Vasile Pogor sought to counter the intellectual supremacy of Romantic nationalism and "Red" liberalism, by introducing a critical approach to nation-building.

Vasile Pogor supported Romania's Westernization within a conservative framework, tempering nationalist presumptions and valuing a culturally pluralistic society.

Vasile Pogor stood out as one of the first locals to study the work of Henry Thomas Buckle, integrating Bucklean concepts into Junimeas ideology.

The notoriously indolent and improvident Vasile Pogor had a preference for orality, and was sought after for his Voltairian wit.

Vasile Pogor left few written works, and many unfulfilled projects, but influenced Romanian literature as a cultural promoter, sponsor, and the first local expert on Charles Baudelaire.

Vasile Pogor was known to his Junimea colleagues as a one-man "contemporary library".

Vasile Pogor still held several high political-judicial offices in the last quarter of Sturdza, including the Agie and the Justice Department chairmanship.

Vasile Pogor corresponded with Chateaubriand, wishing to publish his poetry in a Moldavian edition, but is probably best known as Voltaire's first Romanian-language translator.

Vasile Pogor first attended the liberal arts' school of Frenchman Malgoverne, and, in addition to discovering an interest in literature, became a skilled amateur draftsman.

In October 1849, young Vasile Pogor took the stagecoach ride to Krakow, and then the train to Paris, accompanied by the boyar heirs Heraclide, Porfiriu, Miclescu and Teodor Veisa, and chaperoned by Malgoverne himself.

Vasile Pogor is widely seen as formed by French education, but, according to cultural sociologist Zigu Ornea, this is only part of the story: Pogor did not graduate from a lycee, but was actually trained at a Germanophone boarding school; was not introduced to Bonapartism, but to "the ideological principles of Restoration".

Vasile Pogor was enlisted at the University of Paris Law School, where he took his doctorate in law.

Vasile Pogor's contact with the Parisian salons was of major formative importance: he was an avid reader and, as literary historian Tudor Vianu notes, "always open to new things, ready to defeat prejudice", if rather indiscriminate.

Vasile Pogor discovered comedie en vaudeville theater, kept company with mature women, and began fantasizing about writing his own novels and short stories.

Vasile Pogor was a judge in Iasi from 1857 to 1858, and a member of the appellate court after March 1859.

When he married the Bessarabian heiress Elena Hartingh, Vasile Pogor established a connection with Russian nobility.

Vasile Pogor's father-in-law was a Karl "Scarlat" Hartingh, owner of an estate in Pohrebeni.

Still employed by the Moldavian appellate court under Cuza's regime, Vasile Pogor objected to the fiscal policies of Premier Nicolae Cretulescu.

Vasile Pogor's resignation was recorded in September 1863, shortly followed by his colleague Alexandru Papadopol-Calimah.

The United Principalities era saw Vasile Pogor's activity blending into the cultural projects of Junimea literary society.

Vasile Pogor thus claimed that Junimea existed in large part because of him.

In Vasile Pogor's account, the first manifestation of what would become Junimea was a study group comprising himself, Skelitti, Papadopol-Calimah, Theodor Aslan, Iorgu Gane, Ioan Ianov, and some other prominent Iasi intellectuals; to the irritation of other Junimists, he constantly backdated Junimeas existence to 1862.

Vasile Pogor's account is not validated by the written records, and other sources suggest that, although invited by Maiorescu, Pogor did not in fact attend the so-called "first Junimea meeting".

Vasile Pogor was nonetheless present at other gatherings, which gave a more formal status to the reunions.

Vasile Pogor himself managed the publishing firm, but did a notoriously poor job.

Ornea suggests that, despite being a respectable boyar and the oldest among the founders, Vasile Pogor was the most "child-like" in his reactions.

Negruzzi recalled that, in defiance for "any social habit", Vasile Pogor left his guests unattended to read his books; he writes that, on first impression, Vasile Pogor appeared "cheeky and missing something upstairs".

However, Vasile Pogor's lolling habit and thundering laughter soon became fashionable, and his yawning during the others' recitations was intentionally loud, provocative and contagious.

Vasile Pogor justified such heckling with the expression Entre qui veut, reste qui peut, later a Junimea motto.

The latter dedicated his activity as a journalist to deriding or condemning the Junimea group, Vasile Pogor included, accusing it of standing for values not complementary with the Romanian way: cosmopolitanism and Germanophilia, elitism and philosemitism.

In 1864, Vasile Pogor discussed the French Revolution, and specifically its "impact on modern ideas".

Vasile Pogor was contributing to the Junimea who's who of Romanian poetry, selecting for reading pieces by the 18th-century boyar Ienachita Vacarescu.

At the prelectiuni, Vasile Pogor spoke about Ancient Greek art; in 1867, about Shakespearean tragedy; during later cycles, he discovered and introduced for the general public the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer.

Vasile Pogor was increasingly drawn into secretive, then conspiratorial, work.

Vasile Pogor was received into the Freemasonry on March 14,1866, and, only a year later, reached the 90th Masonic Degree.

Around 1867, against antisemitic agitation by the Free and Independent Faction, the Junimist core, Vasile Pogor included, signed up to a proposal for Jewish emancipation, meaning the Jewish minority's effective naturalization.

At the beginning of that decade, "White" Premier Manolache Costache Epureanu opened his cabinet to Junimist experts, and Vasile Pogor was expected to take over a top administrative position.

Vasile Pogor resigned before the so-called "Hen and Fledgling" cabinet was even sworn in.

Vasile Pogor declared himself cured within a few days, announcing that he was ready to take over as Romania's Minister of Education.

Vasile Pogor still was a notable participant in polemics, taking Maiorescu's side.

Probably wishing to maintain "White" unity, the Junimists, including Vasile Pogor, gave reluctant backing to the Epureanu program, and became targets for "Red" sarcasm, and were even chided by the dominant conservative club, that of Lascar Catargiu.

In parallel with his political chores, Vasile Pogor took up the task of translating some of Charles Baudelaire's Flowers of Evil.

Vasile Pogor's papers reveal that he had tried, but failed, to translate, among others, Rameau's Nephew by Diderot, Ludwig Uhland's "The Minstrel's Curse", and Volney's Les Ruines.

Vasile Pogor was assigned to the editorial committee, a triumvirate grouping Maiorescu and Negruzzi.

Also that year, the magazine published a poem by Vasile Pogor's deceased father, newly discovered in the family archive.

George Panu, the Junimea memoirist, noted that Vasile Pogor was an incompetent public speaker, rarely present at the rostrum.

Vasile Pogor was again sent to the Assembly in the 1875 election, during which the "Red" opposition ran as a consolidated National Liberal Party.

Vasile Pogor, who had been reelected chairman of the Iasi appellate court, declined an invitation to become judge at the High Court of Cassation.

Vasile Pogor managed to preserve his seat in the new legislature, which voted on Romanian independence during the War of '77.

Vasile Pogor was thus involved in parliamentary discussions about the thorny issue of antisemitic discrimination favored by the PNL: in early 1878, he was one of the few deputies who questioned the law preventing Romanian Jews from trading in distilled beverages.

Also in 1878, Vasile Pogor, who had been voted in as director of the Iasi credit union, was elected to the City Council.

In late 1877, it seemed that the "White" daily, Timpul, put out by Eminescu and Slavici, was about to go under, and Vasile Pogor was expected by his colleagues to help financially.

Nothing doing: Vasile Pogor is not one to snap out of his immobility and passivity, not for anything in this world.

Vasile Pogor agreed to contribute money for Eminescu and Slavici's wages, but asked for a receipt.

On February 3,1880, Vasile Pogor was one of 88 "White" spokesmen who signed the founding document of Romania's Conservative Party.

For three non-consecutive terms, Vasile Pogor was the Conservative and Junimist Mayor of Iasi: February 10,1880 to April 26,1881; June 7,1888 to June 7,1890; May 30,1892 to November 11,1894.

Vasile Pogor entered history for his creative approach to the Romanianization measures, specifically those which required all shops to have Romanian-language signs.

Vasile Pogor proposed that all shops still carrying non-essential foreign words be taxed at three times the official rate.

Cultural history preserves his dialogue with a Jewish merchant, who told him that Romanian had no assimilated word for "liqueurs"; Vasile Pogor spontaneously approximated an equivalent, licheruri.

Vasile Pogor took care of various other projects, ensuring that the city was compensated by the central government for having lost its status of state capital: 10 million lei entered the city budget, and 8 neighboring estates were merged into the metropolitan area.

Vasile Pogor moved the City Hall into Roznovanu Palace, ordering works to begin on the Iasi National Theatre, public bathing facilities, ten primary schools, and a new Abattoir.

Vasile Pogor's mandates saw the erection of statues honoring the pioneer Moldavian historian Miron Costin and the Junimist poet Vasile Alecsandri.

From 1883, when Eminescu had fallen physically and mentally ill, Vasile Pogor donated to his regular upkeep in a sanitarium.

In December 1887, Pogor became a leading member of the Iasi League of Resistance, which included the former Factionalists such as Alecu D Holban and Gheorghe Marzescu.

Vasile Pogor continued to suggest that Junimea should back the anti-PNL "United Opposition", betting Maiorescu that the latter would be called into power by the monarch.

In September 1888, alongside Dimitrie Ghica-Comanesti and Ilariu R Isvoranu, Pogor negotiated an alliance with the mainline Conservatives, allowing Rosetti to secure his office.

Vasile Pogor continued to be listed as a Junimist, and took another seat in the race for the First College.

From 1889 to 1890, during the Junimists reestablishment as an independent party, and again after the 1891 election, Vasile Pogor was Vice President of the Assembly.

Vasile Pogor was drafted into the panel which negotiated an alliance with the Radical Party before the county elections of September 1895, and then into the nomination committee for the general election.

Vasile Pogor became a member of Iasi's Conservative Party steering committee, involving himself in strategy planning ahead of the 1901 general election.

One of his biographers, Liviu Papuc, noted that, overall, the first Junimist generation ran into financial trouble, and that Vasile Pogor ended his career on an "even score" with life.

Vasile Pogor's reported cause of death was "heart disease"; according to his fellow Conservative Rudolf Sutu, he "passed on among his family, placid and smiling, as he had lived".

Vasile Pogor was by then a Commander of the Order of the Star of Romania and a Grand officer of the Order of the Crown of Romania.

Vasile Pogor's anti-dogmatism precluded his engagement on the more serious side of Junimism.

Vasile Pogor was the only one in the group not to approve of poet laureate Vasile Alecsandri.

Later, Vasile Pogor welcomed in and shed a spotlight on the cynical, streetwise, humorist Ion Luca Caragiale, who was a passing guest at Junimea.

Vasile Pogor coined the disparaging nickname Muierescu.

Vasile Pogor was a Romanian Parnassian, reworking classical themes and seeking formal purity, and was especially influenced by Baudelaire and by Theophile Gautier.

Beyond the Parnassian poems, Vasile Pogor applied his wit to the realm of parody.

Vasile Pogor's roots were in Romanian Orthodoxy: his father was ktitor of the Misesti Church.

Vasile Pogor Jr was himself a student of Christian history, but his main focus was on Judaism, the Hebrew Bible, and the Christian Old Testament.

Vasile Pogor kept detailed notes on the minutiae of biblical lore, making notes about Gog and Magog, the Kinnor, the Purim etc.

Vasile Pogor attacked religion as a lifeless institution, as seen in his poem Magnitudo parri, credited by some as his masterpiece.

Visual portrayals of Pogor include a sketch by Eugen N Ghika-Budesti, first published in 1895.

Vasile Pogor has a following in the Romanian-speaking literary communities of Bessarabia, most of which is the independent state of Moldova.