Dimitrie Cantemir

Who is Dimitrie Cantemir?

Dimitrie Cantemir was Prince of Moldavia (ruling briefly in 1693 and again from 1710 to 1711) and one of the most accomplished scholars produced by the Moldavian lands. Educated in Constantinople, he mastered multiple languages and became a genuinely encyclopedic figure: historian, philosopher, composer of Ottoman classical music, cartographer, and linguist. His Latin treatise "Descriptio Moldaviae" (Description of Moldavia), written for the Berlin Academy of Sciences after he was elected a member in 1714, remains a foundational geographic and ethnographic account of the region, covering its land, customs, language, and history. He also wrote "Hronicul vechimei a romano-moldo-vlahilor", an early history arguing for the Roman origins of the Moldavians and Wallachians, and "Istoria Imperiului Otoman" (History of the Ottoman Empire), long used as a reference work in Western Europe. In 1711 Cantemir allied Moldavia with Peter the Great of Russia against the Ottomans in the Pruth River Campaign; after their defeat he went into exile in Russia, where he became an adviser to the Tsar and a senator, continuing his scholarly work until his death in 1723. He is regarded today as Moldova's foremost Enlightenment-era intellectual.

Sources: Dimitrie Cantemir, Descriptio Moldaviae (1714-1716, Berlin Academy of Sciences) · Dimitrie Cantemir, Hronicul vechimei a romano-moldo-vlahilor · Ștefan Ciobanu, Dimitrie Cantemir în Rusia (1925)