Ioan or Ion Bianu (1856 or 1857 – February 13, 1935) was an Imperial Austrian-born Romanian philologist and bibliographer. The son of a peasant family from Transylvania, he completed high school in Blaj, where he became a disciple of Timotei Cipariu and . As a youth, he espoused Romanian nationalism, and came into conflict with the Austro-Hungarian authorities, before finally emigrating to the Romanian Old Kingdom in 1876. There, he attended the University of Bucharest, later joining the faculty, where he taught Romanian literary history. He 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. He 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. Near the end of his life, struggling with deafness, Bianu withdrew from the Library in favor of his friend Radu R. Rosetti, but went on to serve as president of the Romanian Academy.
Bianu's scholarship was doubled by his work as an organizer in the field, and, especially after 1880, by a participation in political intrigues. He was a disciple of Dimitrie Sturdza, joining the latter's National Liberal Party and canvassing support in academia. 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. As such, Bianu was a "Germanophile" during World War I, meaning that he criticized Romania's alliance with the Entente Powers. He remained in German-occupied territory following the fall of Bucharest, but was spared persecution upon the end of war.
Biography
Beginnings The future scholar was born in Făget (Oláhbükkös), a village east of the Transylvanian town of BlajBuzași, p. B; Mihai, p. 253; Nastasă (2007), p. 142 (on the southern border of Kis-Küküllő County from 1876, and nowadays in Alba County). His parents, Grigore and Anica (née Popa), married in 1855; it was Grigore's second marriage.Dumitraș, p. 206 The couple had two sons and three daughters, all of whom survived into adulthood.Dumitraș, pp. 206–207 The Bianu family was an old peasant one of some means, the village a small Romanian one on a hillside. Living in proximity to the spiritual center of the Romanian Greek-Catholic Church in what was then the Austrian Empire, they belonged to that faith.Dumitraș, p. 208 Bianu was taught reading and writing by his grandfather,Buzași, p. B then attended primary school in his native village. His 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.Dumitraș, p. 208. See also Nastasă (2007), p. 142 When he arrived in 1868, the local atmosphere was uncertain and marked by the faculty's activism against the recent Austro-Hungarian Compromise, which consecrated Transylvania part of the Hungarian Crown, against Romanian demands.Buzași, p. C; Dumitraș, pp. 208–210
While Bianu was a student there, Timotei Cipariu was at the height of his career.Mihai, p. 253; Nastasă (2007), p. 142 He 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. It was in Moldovan's home that Bianu's interest in old Romanian books was first awakened, and he recalled in later years how he was treated there like a son.Dumitraș, pp. 209–210. See also Nastasă (2007), p. 142 In 1875–1876, Bianu joined the student literary society and contributed to its magazine, Filomela; he also served for a while as school librarian. One of his final acts at the school was to participate in an annual demonstration of the May 1848 assembly on Câmpia Libertății. This was the last such gathering, as the Hungarian authorities banned them henceforth.Buzași, p. C; Dumitraș, p. 215
Bianu graduated in 1876, in the same class as his cousin Vasile Bianu, the future physician and political figure.Victor Macaveiu, "Liga Culturală la Blaj. Congresul anual, 27—29 Iunie 1926", in Cultura Creștină, Nr. 4–6/1926, pp. 97–99 Bearing a recommendation from Moldovan for August Treboniu Laurian, Ioan left for Bucharest, capital of the Romanian Old Kingdom;Mihai, p. 253. See also Nastasă (2007), pp. 142, 505 four classmates joined him in emigrating.Dumitraș, p. 215 Laurian, supported by the poet Gheorghe Sion,Nastasă (2007), p. 505 obtained him a post as assistant at the Central State Library. He was thus able to support himself until 1880 while attending the literature and philosophy faculty of the University of Bucharest. In early 1879, he was named archivist and librarian of the Romanian Academy.Mihai, p. 253 Notoriously thrifty, he lived on the Romanian Academy Library grounds, downtown Bucharest, where he also raised cows.Nastasă (2007), p. 130; (2010), p. 396
In 1881, he won a competition to become professor of Romanian language and literature at Saint Sava National College.Mihai, p. 253; Nastasă (2007), p. 505 Later that year, with the help of his former professor Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu,Chelaru, p. 250; Crăciun, pp. 787–788 he received a scholarship to study Romance philology in Milan and Paris.Boia, p. 169; Mihai, p. 253; Nastasă (2007), pp. 202–203, 226, 399; Urs, p. 350 His teachers included several of Hasdeu's personal friends, the Slavists Vatroslav Jagić, Louis Léger, and Graziadio Isaia Ascoli.Chelaru, p. 250 He also met the Romanist Émile Picot,Urs, p. 350 took courses with Gaston Paris, but the lasting impact of his sojourn lay in the eye-opening visits to libraries.Crăciun, p. 788; Nastasă (2007), p. 226 Impressed by the Palazzo Brera, the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, libraries across Italy, the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the British Museum and the Bodleian Library, he at the same time became keenly aware of the poor state of Romania's libraries and gathered ideas for their improvement.Crăciun, p. 788
After returning home in 1883, he became assistant professor at the University of Bucharest's department of Romanian literature. He still made visits abroad: in 1885, he spent time in Galicia-Lodomeria, researching the Jagiellonian Library for Romanian-related subjects, the Ossoliński archive at Lemberg, and the Dosoftei fund at Schowkwa.Ioan Bianu, Insemnărĭ istorice și literare adunate din biblioteci și arhive galițiene în vara anului 1885. Extrasŭ din Analele Academieĭ Române, Seria II, Tom. VIII, Secț. I. Bucharest: Tipografia Academieĭ Române (Laboratoriĭ Românĭ), 1886. See also Crăciun, p. 789 Upon his own request, he was also sent to Minsk Governorate, Russian Empire, where he researched the Radziwiłł collection at Nesvizh Castle. He was hosted there by Antoni Wilhelm Radziwiłł, who allowed him to copy some 300 documents,"Foița. Academia română. Sesiunea generală din anul 1887. Raportul secretatului general asupra lucrărilor făcute în anul 1886–87 (Urmare)", in Telegraful Român, Nr. 28/1887, p. 110 and befriended his young daughter Elżbieta, later wife of the Count Potocki.Iorga (1939, IV), p. 168
Professor and National Liberal agent Upon his return to Bucharest in June 1886, Bianu married Alexandrina Băicoianu, described by his friend Sextil Pușcariu as a "brilliantly spiritual" woman,Nastasă (2010), p. 99 and was thus received into the Bucharest upper-class. As noted by social historian Lucian Nastasă, this move also ensured Bianu more recognition as a scholar, as well as access to politics—through Băicoianu, he was now related to historian Alexandru D. Xenopol and politician Nicolae Xenopol.Nastasă (2007), pp. 505–506; (2010), pp. 99, 103 The couple were Pușcariu's godparents upon the latter's own wedding, in September 1905.Nastasă (2010), pp. 111, 149
In 1888, Bianu began his collaboration with Hasdeu's neoromantic literary review, Revista Nouă.George Călinescu, Istoria literaturii române de la origini pînă în prezent, pp. 567, 569. Bucharest: Editura Minerva, 1986 He contributed the book review column, as well as a biography of the writer Gheorghe Asachi.Victor Bilciurescu, Bucureștii și bucureștenii de ieri și de azi, pp. 266, 269. Bucharest: Editura Ziarului Universul, 1945. Elected a corresponding member of the academy in 1887, he was elevated to titular status in 1902.Mihai, p. 253; Nastasă (2007), pp. 26, 495, 503, 506, 509–510 After losing the Romanian literature chair to Ovid Densusianu in 1901, in 1902 Bianu became the titled holder of the Romanian literature history professorate at the university.Nastasă (2007), pp. 245–246, 385, 398–402. See also Mihai, p. 253 He was later also elected dean of the literature faculty. In addition to such work, in 1904 he served on a panel of inquiry created by the Ministry of Education, closing down the Notre-Dame de Sion schools, accused of forcefully converting Orthodox students to Catholicism.Constantin Bacalbașa, Bucureștii de altă dată, Vol. III, p. 84. Bucharest: Universul, 1936
Meanwhile, a member of the National Liberal Party (PNL) and auditor of its Bucharest club,Bacalbașa (1928), p. 144 Bianu was an ally of Dimitrie Sturdza and reached the Assembly of Deputies. Without serious ambitions in this realm, he preferred to be a sort of éminence grise to the party leader.Boia, p. 169. See also Nastasă (2007), pp. 83, 89, 270–271; (2010), p. 257; Rosetti, p. 50 From as early as 1887, he interceded between Sturdza and PNL-friendly academics, including the Slavist Ioan Bogdan, obtaining their support against rival Conservatives, and helping them travel for specialization abroad.Nastasă (2007), pp. 89, 106–107, 233–234, 270–272, 294, 320–321, 327–329; (2010), pp. 171–172, 350–351, 398. See also Chelaru, pp. 250–253, 258 In 1892, a favorable review he penned for Revista Nouă helped Bogdan win a professorship.Chelaru, p. 258 However, Bianu preserved links with the Conservatives' literary club, Junimea, which he frequented as an outside guest in the 1880s.Ornea, p. 92 He also frequented Conservative clubs in Western Moldavia, befriending the moderate Conservative Radu Rosetti—and then his young son, Radu R. Rosetti. The two politicians discussed issues on bipartisan policies, and even conspired to remove incompetent administrators of either hue from their offices.Rosetti, pp. 26, 41, 45, 50, 81, 88, 106, 132–134 He and Hasdeu also persuaded Radu Sr to start his work as a social historian and theorist, and afterward helped him to find employment as an archivist.Rosetti, pp. 45, 83, 106 According to Nastasă, Bianu, allegedly the lover of Sturdza's wife Zoe,Nastasă (2010), p. 257 was an expert at maneuvering the "levers of power", and presided upon his own "clique".Nastasă (2007), p. 131