Alexandru Radu (Church Slavonic and Romanian Cyrillic: Алєѯандрꙋ воєвод, Alexandru Voevod;Iorga, p. 97; Veress, p. 293 Gane, p. 234 or Alessandro sesto, "Alexander the Sixth";Rezachevici (2001), p. 35 1611 – June or October 1632), better known as Alexandru Coconul ("Alexander the Child" or "the Princelet") or Alexandru Corvin, was the Prince of Wallachia from 1623 to 1627, and then the Prince of Moldavia from 1629 to 1630. He was the son of Radu Mihnea, who reigned several times in both countries the 1600s and 1610s; this connection also made Alexandru among the last of Vlad the Impaler's Romanian bloodline within the House of Drăculești. The dynasty's apex coincided with the tightening of control by the Ottoman Empire over both principalities, leading to their direct appointment or demotion by the Ottoman Sultan, in exchange for gifts and promises to pay up in taxes (including the haraç). Radu Mihnea contemplated ways to decrease the Ottoman-imposed burdens, and had a cautious foreign policy, aligning himself with the Republic of Venice; he was part-Venetian himself, while Alexandru's mother was Italo-Levantine. The family also favored Catholicism, possibly to the point of secretly embracing it—while continuing to act as nominal protectors of the Eastern Orthodox Church.
Alexandru's Wallachian reign was instrumented as a dynastic union, since his father was at the time serving as Moldavia's prince; the fourteen-year-old made Bucharest his permanent capital, and continued works at Radu Vodă Monastery. Both countries were at the time partly occupied by the Crimean Khanate, whose troops, which produced a major economic slump, were only chased out by the neighboring Principality of Transylvania. As a result, both Radu Mihnea and Alexandru were controlled by Gabriel Bethlen, the Transylvanian Prince, who wished to eventually annex Moldavia and Wallachia to his own polity. Alexandru obtained more political leverage by marrying Ruxandra Beglitzi, from an influential clan of Ottoman Greeks, but immediately shunned her upon discovering that she had been disfigured by smallpox. Coconul was orphaned and politically isolated by 1626, when Miron Barnovschi-Movilă, who took over in Moldavia, came to act as his superior.
Targeted by intrigues and uprisings, Coconul tried to reduce government waste, and oversaw the first trial for embezzlement in Wallachia's history; he also tried lessening the fiscal weight on his subjects. His failure to pay up his Ottoman debts ended up vexing his liege, Murad IV, who had him deposed and exiled. When his protectors intervened on his behalf, Alexandru was allowed to replace Barnovschi in Moldavia. His seven-months-long reign there was sabotaged by the Movilești family, as well as by Coconul's subservience to his Greek-and-Venetian allies. Perceived as a liability, he was replaced by Murad with the more experienced Moise Movilă; this did not stop Alexandru from still pursuing the throne of either principality, and he presented himself as a candidate to the day of his death, aged 21. His relatives engaged in a protracted legal battle over money he had stored at the Zecca of Venice. He himself faded out of public memory, and by the 19th century was casually mistaken for his lifelong rival, Alexandru Iliaș.
Biography Origins and early life Coconul was active at a time when the twin principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia were experiencing direct submission to the Ottoman Empire, with their rulers (also known collectively as voivodes or hospodars) directly appointed by the Sublime Porte from various qualified families. Alexandru's father Radu Mihnea was the illegitimate son of Prince Mihnea Turcitul. The latter had reigned twice in Wallachia before 1591, afterwards embracing Islam. Turcitul and his progeny formed a separate branch of the Drăculești clan, which had divided itself into competing factions; all three figures were occasionally known as the Mihnești, which honored their 15th-century ancestor, Mihnea cel Rău, who was himself born out of wedlock to Vlad the Impaler.Rezachevici (2000), pp. 231–233 When addressing Catholic foreigners, Turcitul and his descendants occasionally styled themselves as "Corvin"—stating a claim of descent from the Hunyadi family, and thus favoring a (since debunked) theory that all of the Impaler's descendants were blood relatives of John "Corvinus".Rezachevici (2000), pp. 230–232, 237. See also Andreescu, pp. 40–41, 53
The princelet was most likely born in 1611,Boriga et al, p. 54. See also Andreescu, pp. 42–43; Constantinov (2002), p. 217; Velescu, p. 90 when Radu Mihnea was on his second stint as a Wallachian ruler. Historian Nicolae Iorga believes that he was named after his great-grandfather Alexander II Mircea, while his sister, Ecaterina, was a namesake of her great-grandmother, Catherine Salvaresso.Iorga, p. 97 Through Salvaresso, the two children were already descendants of Venetian nobility,Gane, p. 224; Velescu, p. 90 an Italian connection that was reinforced by their father's marriage. Coconul and Ecaterina's mother was Lady Arghira, whom genealogist Constantin Gane tentatively identified as a Greek.Gane, p. 226 Other scholars, who have recovered her original surname, "Minetti", describe her as an Italo-Levantine with Venetian roots.Pippidi, p. 194; Theodorescu, pp. 105, 157. See also Andreescu, p. 53 The more detailed documents on her life report that she was residing at Pera and was financially destitute before marrying Radu, who was at the time in his Ottoman exile.Pippidi, p. 194
Radu Mihnea's legitimate children were the recipients of at least some Western education: Ecaterina could at least sign her name, while Alexandru could write in Venetian (though, as Iorga notes, his style was ungrammatical).Iorga, p. 101 Venetian sources nevertheless suggest that he could not speak the language, and had to use gestures to make himself understood.Gane, pp. 235–236 They had a half-brother, born from Radu Mihnea's affair with a slave-girl, and thus half-Romani.Gane, p. 236 He is identified by Iorga as Mihnea Radu, himself a future Prince of Wallachia.Iorga, p. 101 This view is challenged by another historian, Andrei Pippidi, since the obscure second son was only known in records as "Nicolachi", and could not have had the same age as Mihnea Radu.Pippidi, p. 211 Another scholar, Constantin Rezachevici, argues that Radu Mihnea had yet another legitimate daughter, whose name is unknown, and who was married to Constantine Vevelli in 1630.Rezachevici (2001), Table I: "Basarabii (2). Ramura Drăculeștilor de la Vlad Țepeș" A second or third "youngest daughter" is described by Gane,Gane, p. 236 though Rezachevici identifies her with Ecaterina.Rezachevici (2001), Table I: "Basarabii (2). Ramura Drăculeștilor de la Vlad Țepeș"
The family was ambiguous in its religious expression. They did not follow Turcitul's religious beliefs, which would have disqualified them from ruling in either Moldavia and Wallachia, though they allowed Turcitul's Muslim daughters to settle in Bucharest and pray there in an improvised mosque.Gane, pp. 226–227 Radu Mihnea was pledged as a protector of the Eastern Orthodox Church (he had been educated on Mount Athos),Gane, pp. 223–224; Pippidi, p. 192 but were also interested in forming close ties with Catholic powers. Overall, his religious policies were informed by Cyril Lucaris and, to a lesser degree, by Maximos Margunios—in that they came close to advocating full communion with the Roman Church.Pippidi, pp. 195–196 As eyewitness Giovanni Battista Montalbani reports, he passed himself off as a "good Catholic".Andreescu, p. 46 This statement was backed by a Franciscan missionary, Paolo Bonici, who was also a privy secretary of "Radulio Corvino". According to Bonici, Radu was a crypto-Catolic, to the point of receiving the last rites as a member of the Roman Church.Andreescu, p. 53 The monarch was also good friends with Philippe de Harlay, the French ambassador to the Ottoman court, who believed that Radu supported his agenda for consolidating Catholicism in Eastern Europe.Andreescu, pp. 52–53, 77 Arghira's brother, Bartolommeo Minetti, served as a liaison between Radu and de Harlay; he was also Stolnic of Wallachia in 1620–1627.Andreescu, pp. 53, 77
When Alexandru was still an "infinitely small child", his father was ordered by the Grand Vizier, Öküz Mehmed Pasha, to leave Wallachia and take the Moldavian throne for his first of two reigns in that country; Alexandru therefore spent part of his childhood in Iași, the Moldavian capital.Gane, p. 226–228 This interval was ended by a revolt of the Moldavian boyardom against their new lord's all-Greek retinue. Though the uprising was quashed, it alerted the Ottomans as to Radu Mihnea's weaknesses. Consequently, Arghira and her children were dispatched as hostages to Istanbul.Gane, p. 228 The boy was seen by his father as useful for his own political project, namely a dynastic union between Wallachia and Moldavia—an idea that "seems to have taken hold in Radu Mihnea's mind as early as 1616, when he took the reins of Moldavia for the first time, after having twice held the Wallachian throne."Andreescu, p. 42 An avviso appearing at Istanbul during that month narrates that Radu had wanted his son to succeed him in Wallachia, but that this project had been shelved due to Alexandru's "very young age" (he would have been "five or six years old").Andreescu, pp. 42–43 Battling gout or rheumatism and an eye disease, Radu Mihnea resigned in 1619, and joined the other Mihnești in Istanbul.Gane, p. 229 He was cured by his doctors, allowing him to seek the Wallachian throne; he was eventually granted this favor, and returned with Arghira and Alexandru to his twin capitals, Bucharest and Târgoviște, in 1620.Gane, pp. 229–230
Wallachian coronation and marriage
Alexandru was formally assigned the Wallachian throne on 14/24 August 1623.Boriga et al, p. 54 When he began his reign in September, he effectively sealed a dynastic union of the two principalities.Andreescu, pp. 40, 179; Boriga et al, pp. 54, 313; Constantinov (2018), p. 53; Gane, p. 230; Velescu, pp. 81, 90–91 Specifically, Radu Mihnea asked and obtained that he himself be moved to Iași, while his son remained in Bucharest with Arghira as regent; in this arrangement, Gane sees evidence that Wallachia was in reality governed from Iași.Gane, p. 230 According to cultural historian Răzvan Theodorescu, the quasi-unification, one of several such projects effected at various intervals by Drăculești princes, was a "testament to the surpassing of medievalness" by political strategists in both countries.Theodorescu, p. 156 His coronation was regarded as a personal triumph by his father, who, according to notes kept by Krzysztof Zbaraski, personally attended the ceremony—and thus delayed his own coronation at Iași.Andreescu, p. 179 The two courts remained in near-permanent contact, exchanging officials: in 1625, Alexandru's scribe Udriște Năsturel was dispatched to Hârlău, in what may have been an effort to create a Latin school for the local boyardom.Andreescu, pp. 52–53 At that stage of his reign, Radu Mihnea was probably hoping that the Ottoman Empire would eventually crumble through the efforts of Catholic powers; while his son was just taking the Wallachian throne, he himself was sending money for safekeeping in the Republic of Venice, and, according to Bonici, was preparing his own self-exile in the Papal States.Andreescu, p. 53