Gheorghe Asachi (, surname also spelled Asaki; 1 March 1788 – 12 November 1869) was a Romanian prose writer, poet, painter, historian, dramatist, engineer, border maker, and translator. An Enlightenment-educated polymath and polyglot, he was one of the most influential people of his generation. Asachi was a respected journalist and political figure, as well as active in technical fields such as civil engineering and pedagogy, and, for long, the civil servant charged with overseeing all Moldavian schools. Among his leading achievements were the issuing of Albina Românească, a highly influential magazine, and the creation of Academia Mihăileană, which replaced Greek-language education with teaching in Romanian. His literary works combined a taste for Classicism with Romantic tenets, while his version of the literary language relied on archaisms and borrowings from the Moldavian dialect.
A controversial political figure, Asachi endorsed the Imperial Russian presence in Moldavia and played a major part in establishing the Regulamentul Organic regime, while supporting the rule of Prince Mihail Sturdza. He 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. Engaged in a long polemic with the liberal leader Mihail Kogălniceanu, he was, together with Nicolae Vogoride, involved in the unsuccessful attempt to block the unionist project through the means of an electoral fraud. 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. He cultivated a relationship with the French historian Edgar Quinet, whose father-in-law he became in 1852.
Biography
Early life Asachi was born in Herța, a small town which is now part of Ukraine. His family originated in Austrian-ruled Transylvania, where it was known under the name Asachievici.Djuvara, p. 352 His father, Lazăr, was an Orthodox priest who kept close contacts with Metropolitan Veniamin Costachi; according to several sources, he was of Armenian descent. "Armenii în istorie și cultură" , in Observator Cultural, retrieved 3 June 2007 His mother Elena (née Niculau or Ardeleanu) was herself the daughter of a Transylvanian priest. The couple had another son, named Petru. Lazăr Asachi was his son's first educator, after which the young Gheorghe most likely enrolled in the Church-run primary school in Herța.Cărăbuș, p. 185
In summer 1795, after deciding not to send Gheorghe and Petru to a Moldavian Greek-language school in the capital city of Iași, Lazăr Asachi opted to give them a more modern education in the Austrian lands, sending them to Lemberg, where they attended gymnasium. After completing seven terms of education in Latin, Polish and German, Gheorghe Asachi entered university (the present-day Lviv University) at the age of 14. He studied at the Faculty of Letters, Philosophy and Sciences (attending lectures in logic, metaphysics, ethics, mathematics, physics, natural history, and architecture), but, in 1804, after two years of studies, he withdrew and returned to Moldavia. Despite this, his level of familiarity with Western culture was arguably unparalleled in his native country during the first half of the 19th century. Over the following decades, he designed several lodgings in both his native country and Galicia.Oprescu, p. 29
His return followed the death of his mother and Lazăr Asachi's appointment as First Protopope of the Moldavian Metropolitan Seat, and saw the family settling in Iași.
In Napoleonic Europe
In early 1805, Asachi fell ill with malaria, and was helped by Metropolitan Veniamin to travel to Vienna, where doctors had advised him to seek treatment. As the recipient of a state scholarship, Asachi studied mathematics and astronomy with Tobie Bürg, as well as pursuing training in the art of painting.
His time in the city coincided with the French Empire's successes in the Napoleonic Wars, and, most important, with the 1805 War of the Third Coalition, during which La Grande Armée occupied Vienna. This allowed Asachi to familiarize himself with French Revolutionary and liberal tenets, which he partly adopted in his political activities. In 1808, as the Russo-Turkish War erupted, Moldavia was occupied by the Russian Empire, First Protopope Lazăr 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. Instead, he left for Italy in April 1808, aiming to complete his studies in Rome, but making long stops in other localities on the way (he notably visited Trieste, Venice, Padua, Ferrara, Bologna, and Florence). Reaching the capital of the Papal States on 11 June, Asachi left on 19 August to visit Naples, Pompeii, and other locations in the Kingdom of Sicily. Upon reaching Mount Vesuvius, he descended unaccompanied into the volcanic crater, and was encouraged by a cheering audience.
He soon after returned to Rome, where he focused on studying Renaissance Latin and Italian literature, as well as taking classes in archeology, painting and sculpture, and entered his most prolific phase in visual arts. In 1809, while visiting an art shop near the Spanish Steps, he met Bianca Milesi, the 19-year-old daughter of a wealthy merchant from Milan, with whom he fell in love. Despite her 1825 marriage to a French doctor, he was to remain her passionate admirer until her death from cholera in 1849. He 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.
At the time, he authored his first poems on Romanian nationalist subjects, which earned him an award presented by the Roman Literary Society. One of these was Viitorul ("The Future"), which voiced a call for national regeneration. Interested in the origin of the Romanians and the history of Roman Dacia, Asachi studied events depicted on Trajan's Column and searched the Vatican Library for documents regarding the history of Romania. It was during the latter research that he came across Dimitrie Cantemir's History of the Growth and Decay of the Ottoman Empire in its English-language edition.Cărăbuș, pp. 186–187
Through Bianca Milesi, Asachi met François Miollis, the French commander in Rome, who reportedly told him that Napoleon Bonaparte intended to emancipate Moldavia and Wallachia as a result of the expedition into Russia, and thus create a new "Dacian Kingdom" in the area of present-day Romania. Partly as a result of this encouragement, Asachi decided to travel back home on 22 June 1812, and, sailing down to Galați, arrived in Iași on 30 August. His 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.
Early lectures and mission to Vienna
In reaction to these developments, Gheorghe Asachi centered his attention on cultural improvements, Westernization, and Enlightenment teachings, with support from Metropolitan Veniamin. In 1813, his expertise and familiarity with European languages led Prince Callimachi to appoint him Reviewer (Referandar) for the Department of Foreign Affairs.Cărăbuș, pp. 187–188
In 1814, increasingly opposed to the Greek-language teaching favored by the Phanariotes, Asachi proposed the first in a series of Romanian-language educational institutions, a course in engineering and topography to be held at the Princely Academy in Iași;Djuvara, p. 215 once approved by the ruler and countersigned by Veniamin, the lectures attracted a number of young boyars (including the future Ottoman diplomat Alexandros Kallimachis, Scarlat's son, Teodor Balș (who was to serve as Moldavia's kaymakam in 1856–1857), Daniel Scavinschi, as well as Gheorghe Asachi's brother Petru.Cărăbuș, p. 188 He gave various lectures, and offered additional training in drawing and art history, as well as in Romanian history. He organized several exhibits of his students' work in technical drawing. Despite a favorable report from its inspectors, Asachi's facility soon met with opposition from Greek teachers at the Academy, which led it to be closed soon after its original students graduated (1819).Cărăbuș, pp. 188–189
Nevertheless, 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. Later in the same year, he was involved in reorganizing the Orthodox seminary at Iași's Socola Monastery, and traveled to Transylvania in order to enlist the help of scholars active there. His friendly relations with various leaders of the Transylvanian School helped in achieving this goal; in 1820, he returned to Moldavia accompanied by Vasile Fabian Bob, Ioan Costa, Ion Manfi, and Vasile Pop, all of whom became teachers at the Academy.
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. Like his father (who died in 1825), Metropolitan Veniamin, and many other notable Moldavians, Asachi fled into Russian territory. He returned the following year, as the Ottoman Empire retook the region and put an end to Phanariote rule (a measure which attracted Asachi's enthusiasm); 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.Cărăbuș, pp. 189, 192–193 With this, he was awarded the traditional rank of Great Comis, and thus joined the ranks of nobility. As a diplomat, Asachi was foremost noted for his contacts with nationalist intellectuals who represented various ethnicities subject to the Austrian Empire.Cărăbuș, p. 193
While in Vienna, he met the Austrian woman Elena Tauber, former governess of the Sturdza children and widow of the merchant Kiriako Melirato; she was his concubine until 1827, when they were married in an Orthodox church in Iași. Tauber had three children from her marriage to Melirato — a girl, Hermiona, and two boys, Alexandru and Dimitrie (later, a mathematician); all of them were adopted by Asachi.
Școala Vasiliană and Albina Românească
Soon after returning, Asachi was appointed caretaker of all Moldavian schools and Vel Agha. In March 1828, he succeeded in opening a multilingual upper school and gymnasium, connected to the Trei Ierarhi Church, named Școala Vasiliană or Gimnaziul Vasilian (in honor of the 17th-century prince Vasile Lupu, who had created the original education institution on that site). It was the first modern institution of its kind in Moldavia, and was soon supplemented by a college. Școala Vasiliană also continued the engineering course, taught by Gheorghe Filipescu, and had additional chairs in mathematics, architecture, applied mechanics and hydraulics; in 1834, it sent several of its alumni, including the architect Alexandru Costinescu, for further studies abroad. On 19 July 1827, a great fire in Iași's western quarter destroyed Asachi's lodging, as well as the vast majority of his possessions and manuscripts.