Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu
Encyclopedia
Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu (boɡˈdan petriˈt͡ʃejku haʃˈdew; name chosen in 1857, name at birth Tadeu Hasdeu; February 26, 1838 – August 25, 1907) was a Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...

n writer and philologist, who pioneered many branches of Romanian philology
Philology
Philology is the study of language in written historical sources; it is a combination of literary studies, history and linguistics.Classical philology is the philology of Greek and Classical Latin...

 and history. Hasdeu is considered to have been able to understand 26 languages (many of which he could also converse in).

Life

He was born in Cristineştii Hotinului (now Kerstentsi in Chernivtsi Oblast
Chernivtsi Oblast
Chernivtsi Oblast is an oblast in western Ukraine, bordering on Romania and Moldova. It has a large variety of landforms: the Carpathian Mountains and picturesque hills at the foot of the mountains gradually change to a broad partly forested plain situated between the Dniester and Prut rivers....

, Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...

), northern Bessarabia
Bessarabia
Bessarabia is a historical term for the geographic region in Eastern Europe bounded by the Dniester River on the east and the Prut River on the west....

, at the time part of Imperial Russia. His father was the witer Alexandru Hâjdeu
Alexandru Hâjdeu
Alexandru Hâjdeu was a writer of Romanian origin, who lived in Bessarabia . He was the father of Romanian writer and philologist Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu....

, a descendent of the Hâjdău
Hâjdau
Hâjdău was the name of a Romanian boyar family from Bessarabia, who activated in Poland, Russian Empire, and Romania. The founders of the Bessarabian line of the family are Ioan Hâjdău and Nicolae Hâjdău, the nephews of Prince Stefan Petriceicu from his sister...

 family of Moldavian
Moldovans
Moldovans or Moldavians are the largest population group of Moldova...

 boyars, with noted Polish
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

 connections. After studying law at the University of Kharkiv
Kharkiv
Kharkiv or Kharkov is the second-largest city in Ukraine.The city was founded in 1654 and was a major centre of Ukrainian culture in the Russian Empire. Kharkiv became the first city in Ukraine where the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic was proclaimed in December 1917 and Soviet government was...

, he fought as a Russian hussar
Hussar
Hussar refers to a number of types of light cavalry which originated in Hungary in the 14th century, tracing its roots from Serbian medieval cavalry tradition, brought to Hungary in the course of the Serb migrations, which began in the late 14th century....

 in the Crimean War
Crimean War
The Crimean War was a conflict fought between the Russian Empire and an alliance of the French Empire, the British Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Sardinia. The war was part of a long-running contest between the major European powers for influence over territories of the declining...

. In 1858 he settled in Iaşi
Iasi
Iași is the second most populous city and a municipality in Romania. Located in the historical Moldavia region, Iași has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Romanian social, cultural, academic and artistic life...

 as a high school teacher and librarian. In 1865, Hasdeu published a monograph
Monograph
A monograph is a work of writing upon a single subject, usually by a single author.It is often a scholarly essay or learned treatise, and may be released in the manner of a book or journal article. It is by definition a single document that forms a complete text in itself...

 on Ioan Vodă the Terrible
Ioan Voda cel Cumplit
John III the Terrible , also John III the Brave or John III the Armenian was Voivode of Moldavia between February 1572 and June 1574....

, renaming him for the first time cel Viteaz—"the Brave". The portrayal of this violent, short rule as a glorious moment (and of Ioan himself as a reformer) drew criticism from the Junimea
Junimea
Junimea was a Romanian literary society founded in Iaşi in 1863, through the initiative of several foreign-educated personalities led by Titu Maiorescu, Petre P. Carp, Vasile Pogor, Theodor Rosetti and Iacob Negruzzi...

society, a conflict which was to follow Hasdeu for the rest of his life. Still, Hasdeu's version of Ioan's character and his anti-boyar
Boyar
A boyar, or bolyar , was a member of the highest rank of the feudal Moscovian, Kievan Rus'ian, Bulgarian, Wallachian, and Moldavian aristocracies, second only to the ruling princes , from the 10th century through the 17th century....

 actions were to be reclaimed as a founding myth by Communist Romania
Communist Romania
Communist Romania was the period in Romanian history when that country was a Soviet-aligned communist state in the Eastern Bloc, with the dominant role of Romanian Communist Party enshrined in its successive constitutions...

.

In 1863, Hasdeu again moved his residence, from Iaşi to Bucharest
Bucharest
Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River....

; he began editing the satirical
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...

 magazine Aghiuţă, which ceased publication the following year.

Scientific works

In Romania, Hasdeu started work on the Arhiva historică a României (1865-1867), the first history work to use sources in Slavonic and Romanian
Romanian language
Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...

. He also published the 1870 philological review Columna lui Traian, the best at the time in Romania. With the work Cuvente den Batrâni (2 volumes, 1878-1881), he was the first to contribute to the history of apocryphal literature in Romania.

His Istoria etnică a Românilor (1875), though incomplete, marks the beginning of critical investigation into the history of Romania. Hasdeu edited the ancient Psalter of Coresi
Coresi
Coresi was a Romanian printer of the sixteenth century. He was the editor of the first printed books in the Romanian language.-Biography:...

of 1577 (Psaltirea lui Coresi, 1881).

His Etymologicum magnum Romaniae (1886) was the beginning of an encyclopaedic dictionary of the Romanian language, though he never covered letters after B. While the completed parts of the work do aim to be exhaustive, and are remarkably detailed, many of its entries reflect more of Hasdeu's own vision than historical facts (in one famous entry, he claims to be able to trace Basarab I's ancestry in a direct line to the Dacia
Dacia
In ancient geography, especially in Roman sources, Dacia was the land inhabited by the Dacians or Getae as they were known by the Greeks—the branch of the Thracians north of the Haemus range...

n rulers, with Dacia as a developed state that would have had, at times, dominated the Roman Empire
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....

—to the point where the single ruling family would have given Rome a large number of emperors).

Hasdeu got involved in the dispute over the Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

 origin of the Romanian language. Being challenged by numerous arguments which pointed to the central position occupied by words of Slavic
Slavic languages
The Slavic languages , a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of Asia.-Branches:Scholars traditionally divide Slavic...

 origin in the Romanian language
Romanian language
Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...

, Hasdeu developed an influential verdict, deemed the theory of words' circulation. The conclusion he reached was that Slavic words were never as widely used as Latin ones, with usage giving the language its character.

In 1876 he was appointed head of the State Archives
National Archives of Romania
The National Archives of Romania , until 1996 the State Archives , are the national archives of Romania, headquartered in Bucharest and headed by Dorin Dobrincu since 2007. It is subordinate to the Ministry of Interior and Administrative Reform...

 in Bucharest
Bucharest
Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River....

, and in 1878 professor of philology at the University of Bucharest
University of Bucharest
The University of Bucharest , in Romania, is a university founded in 1864 by decree of Prince Alexander John Cuza to convert the former Saint Sava Academy into the current University of Bucharest.-Presentation:...

.

Other activities

Hasdeu was also a keen politician, but often at odds with the Romanian establishment. For example, he was placed under arrest for a nine-day interval after Captain Alexandru Candiano-Popescu's "Republic of Ploieşti
Republic of Ploiesti
The Republic of Ploiești was a revolt against the Romanian monarchy in the city of Ploiești, Romania, on August 8, 1870.-Background:Romanian liberal radicals of Ploiești and elsewhere were opposed to the new ruler of the country, Prince Carol of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen , and desired a republic to...

" conspiracy (1870). Although he had been a staunch defender of the deposed Alexander John Cuza
Alexander John Cuza
Alexander John Cuza was a Moldavian-born Romanian politician who ruled as the first Domnitor of the United Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia between 1859 and 1866.-Early life:...

, he eventually backed the movement against him (led by Mihail Kogălniceanu
Mihail Kogalniceanu
Mihail Kogălniceanu was a Moldavian-born Romanian liberal statesman, lawyer, historian and publicist; he became Prime Minister of Romania October 11, 1863, after the 1859 union of the Danubian Principalities under Domnitor Alexander John Cuza, and later served as Foreign Minister under Carol I. He...

), and was not opposed to the new Domnitor
Domnitor
Domnitor was the official title of the ruler of the United Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia between 1859 and 1866....

(future King of Romania
King of Romania
King of the Romanians , rather than King of Romania , was the official title of the ruler of the Kingdom of Romania from 1881 until 1947, when Romania was proclaimed a republic....

) Carol
Carol I of Romania
Carol I , born Prince Karl of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen was reigning prince and then King of Romania from 1866 to 1914. He was elected prince of Romania on 20 April 1866 following the overthrow of Alexandru Ioan Cuza by a palace coup...

. However, Hasdeu was a Liberal Party
National Liberal Party (Romania)
The National Liberal Party , abbreviated to PNL, is a centre-right liberal party in Romania. It is the third-largest party in the Romanian Parliament, with 53 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 22 in the Senate: behind the centre-right Democratic Liberal Party and the centre-left Social...

 activist (he was elected to Parliament on its list for two non-consecutive terms), and close to its most radical, republican wing—the one led by C. A. Rosetti
C. A. Rosetti
Constantin Alexandru Rosetti was a Romanian literary and political leader, born in Bucharest into a Phanariot Greek family.In 1845, Rosetti went to Paris, where he met Alphonse de Lamartine, the patron of the Society of Romanian Students in Paris. In 1847, he married Mary Grant, the sister of the...

. As the republican experiment coincided with worsened relations between Prime Minister
Prime Minister of Romania
The Prime Minister of Romania is the head of the Government of Romania. Initially, the office was styled President of the Council of Ministers , when the term "Government" included more than the Cabinet, and the Cabinet was called The Council of Ministers...

 Ion Brătianu
Ion Bratianu
Ion C. Brătianu was one of the major political figures of 19th century Romania. He was the younger brother of Dimitrie, as well as the father of Ionel, Dinu, and Vintilă Brătianu...

 and Carol, all Liberal Party members became suspect of involvement. Together with several Party leaders, Hasdeu was tried and acquitted.

After the death of his only child, Iulia
Iulia Hasdeu
Iulia Haşdeu had a famous father in the person of Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu, a Romanian writer and philologist. Even though she died of tuberculosis at the age of 18, Iulia made many significant achievements. She wrote poems and prose, taught herself foreign languages and studied piano and canto....

, in 1888, he became a spiritualist and a firm adept of the spiritism
Spiritism
Spiritism is a loose corpus of religious faiths having in common the general belief in the survival of a spirit after death. In a stricter sense, it is the religion, beliefs and practices of the people affiliated to the International Spiritist Union, based on the works of Allan Kardec and others...

. He retreated to a Câmpina
Câmpina
Câmpina is a city in Prahova county, Romania, north of the county seat Ploieşti, located on the main route between Wallachia and Transylvania. In 2003, the city celebrated 500 years since its founding.-History:...

 mansion, and arranged it as a temple to his newly found beliefs and to his daughter. He died there and was buried in Bellu cemetery
Bellu
Bellu is the most famous cemetery in Bucharest, Romania.It is located on a plot of land donated to the local administration by Baron Barbu Bellu...

, Bucharest
Bucharest
Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River....

.

His works include two dramas, Răsvan şi Vidra (romanticizing the actions of an obscure 1590s Moldavian-Romani Voivode, Ştefan Răzvan
Stefan Razvan
Ştefan Răzvan was a Rom from the historical Romanian state of Wallachia, who became the Voivode of Moldavia .-Biography:...

), and Domniţa Ruxandra. In 1891-92, he wrote Sic Cogito, a theoretical work of spiritism as a philosophy.

In addition to his interest in science, Hasdeu was the author of many poems, usually short ones. The Romanian critic Mircea Eliade
Mircea Eliade
Mircea Eliade was a Romanian historian of religion, fiction writer, philosopher, and professor at the University of Chicago. He was a leading interpreter of religious experience, who established paradigms in religious studies that persist to this day...

 described him as a "genius of an amazing vastness".

Note on his name

Hasdeu is pronounced as if spelled with the Romanian version of ş
S
S is the nineteenth letter in the ISO basic Latin alphabet.-History: Semitic Šîn represented a voiceless postalveolar fricative . Greek did not have this sound, so the Greek sigma came to represent...

(Haşdeu); Hasdeu never spelled it with any diacritic (most likely because the Romanian alphabet
Romanian alphabet
The Romanian alphabet is a modification of the Latin alphabet and consists of 31 letters:The letters Q , W , and Y were officially introduced in the Romanian alphabet in 1982, although they had been used earlier...

 appeared and went through several major changes during his lifetime).

Although many times taken for a first surname, Petriceicu is in fact his second name. The confusion can be ascribed to the name's uniqueness, and to the misguided assumption that cu is the same as the extremely common suffix for Romanian family names. The name was chosen by the writer himself, and it reflected the Hasdeu family claim to have descended from 17th century Moldavian ruler Ştefan Petriceicu.

External links

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