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Mihail Kogălniceanu
Prime Minister of Romania
In office October 11 1863 – January 26 1865
Preceded by	Nicolae Creţulescu
Succeeded by	Nicolae Creţulescu
Personal details
Born	September 6, 1817 Iaşi, Moldavia
Died	July 1, 1891 Paris, France
Political party	National Liberal Party

Mihail Kogălniceanu (September 6, 1817–July 1, 1891) was a Moldavian-born Romanian liberal statesman, lawyer, historian and publicist; he became Prime Minister of Romania October 11, 1863, after the union of the Danubian Principalities under Domnitor Alexander John Cuza. A polymath, he was one of the most influential Romanian intellectuals of his generation. Kogălniceanu, who sided with the moderate liberal current for most of his lifetime, he began his political career as a collaborator of Prince Mihail Sturdza. Subsequently, he was the ideologue of the abortive 1848 Moldavian revolution, authoring its main document, the Romantic nationalist Dorinţele partidei naţionale din Moldova.

Following the Crimean War, with Prince Grigore Alexandru Ghica, he was responsible for drafting legislation to abolish Roma slavery. He played a prominent part during the elections for the ad-hoc Divan, and successfully promoted Cuza, his lifelong friend, to the throne. He advanced legislation to revoke traditional ranks and titles, and to secularize the property of monasteries. However, Kogălniceanu's efforts at land reform resulted in a censure vote, and he resigned in 1865. During his final years, he was a prominent member of the Romanian Academy, and served as Romanian representative to France.

Biography

Early life

Born in Iaşi, he belonged to the Kogălniceanu family of Moldavian boyars, being the son of Vornic Ilie Kogălniceanu, and the great-grandson of Constantin Kogălniceanu (noted for having signed his name to a 1749 document issued by Prince Constantine Mavrocordatos, through which serfdom was disestablished in Moldavia). Mihail's mother, Catinca née Stavilla (or Stavillă), was, according to Kogălniceanu's own words, "[from] a Romanian family in Bessarabia". The author took pride in noting that "my family has never searched its origins in foreign countries or peoples". Nevetheless, in a speech he gave shortly before his death, Kogălniceanu commented that Catinca Stavilla had been the descendant of "a Genoese family, settled for centuries in the Genoese colony of Cetatea Albă (Akerman), whence it then scattered throughout Bessarabia".

Kogălniceanu was educated at Trei Ierarhi monastery in Iaşi, before being tutored by Gherman Vida, a monk who belonged to the Transylvanian School, and who was an associate of Gheorghe Şincai. He completed his primary education in Miroslava, where he attended the Cuénim boarding school. It was during this period that he first met the poet Vasile Alecsandri and Cuza, as well as becoming a passionate student of history, beginning his investigations into old Moldavian chronicles.

With support from Prince Mihail Sturdza, Kogălniceanu continued his studies abroad, originally in the French city of Lunéville, and later at the University of Berlin. During that period, he came in contact with and was greatly influenced by Friedrich Carl von Savigny, Alexander von Humboldt, and especially Professor Leopold von Ranke, whose ideas on the necessity for politicians to be acquainted with historical science he readily adopted.

Greatly expanding his familiarity with historical and social subjects, Kogălniceanu also began work on his first volumes: a pioneering study on the Roma people and the French-language Histoire de la Valachie, de la Moldavie, et des Vlaques transdanubiens ("A History of Wallachia, Moldavia, and of Transdanubian Vlachs", the first volume in a synthesis of Romanian history), both of which were first published in 1837 inside the German Confederation. In addition, he authored a series of studies on Romanian literature. Raising the suspicions of Prince Sturdza after it became apparent that he sided with the reform-minded youth of his day, Kogălniceanu was prevented from completing his doctorate, and instead returned to Iaşi, where he became a princely adjutant in 1838.

Over the following decade, he published a large number of works, including essays and articles, as well as his first editions of the Moldavian chroniclers, as well as other books and articles, while founding a succession of periodicals: Alăuta Românească (1838), Foaie Sătească (1839), Dacia Literară (1840), Arhiva Românească (1840), Calendar pentru Poporul Românesc (1842), and Propăşirea (1843). In 1840, he became co-director (with Alecsandri and Constantin Negruzzi) of the National Theater Iaşi, while serving as Prince Sturdza's private secretary.

In 1843, he gave a celebrated inaugural lecture on national history at the newly-founded Academia Mihăileană in Iaşi, a lecture which greatly influenced ethnic Romanian students at the University of Paris and the 1848 generation (see Cuvânt pentru deschiderea cursului de istorie naţională). Other professors at the Academy, originating in several historical regions, where Ion Ghica, Eftimie Murgu, and Ion Ionescu de la Brad. Among other things, Kogălniceanu's introductory speech made explicit references to the common cause of Romanians living in the two states of Moldavia and Wallachia, as well as in Austrian- and Russian-ruled areas:

"I view as my country everywhere on earth where Romanian is spoken, and as national history the history of all of Moldavia, that of Wallachia, and that of our brothers in Transylvania."

Around 1843, Kogălniceanu's enthusiasm for change was making him a suspect with Moldavian authorities, and his lectures on History were suspended in 1844. His passport while he was traveling to Vienna as the secret representative of the Moldavian political opposition (attempting to approach Metternich and discuss Sturdza's ouster). Briefly imprisoned after returning to Iaşi, he soon after became involved in political agitation in Wallachia, assisting his friend Ion Ghica: in February, during a Romantic nationalist celebration, he traveled to Bucharest, where he met members of the secretive Frăţia and of its legal front, Soţietatea Literară (including Ghica, Nicolae Bălcescu, August Treboniu Laurian, Alexandru G. Golescu, and C. A. Rosetti). Kogălniceanu was in Paris and other Western European cities from 1845 to 1847, joining the Romanian student association (Societatea Studenţilor Români) that included Ghica, Bălcescu, and Rosetti.

Following the onset of European Revolutions, Kogălniceanu was present at the forefront of nationalist politics. Though he did not sign the March 1848 Iaşi petition for a number of reasons, Prince Sturdza was not deceived. The former princely aide was among those sought in the police roundup that followed. From Kogălniceanu's pen flowed several of the most vituperative pamphlet attacks on Sturdza, and by July a reward was offered for his apprehension "dead or alive." He fled soon thereafter to Bukovina and the hospitable confines of the Hurmuzachi estate.

Kogălniceanu now became a member of the Moldavian Central Revolutionary Committee in exile and its chief spokesman. His exposition of "The Wishes of the National Party," (August 1848) was both an excellent polemic manifesto and a comprehensive statement of the goals of the 1848 Romanian revolutions. It called for internal autonomy, civil and political liberties, abolition of serfdom and class privilege, and union of Moldova and Muntenia. He published at the same time a "Project for a Moldavian Constitution," which showed how these ideas might be translated into reality. Kogălniceanu also became a collaborator of the Bucovinian Romanian journal Bucovina, the voice of the 1848 revolution in the Romanian lands.

A cholera epidemic forced him to leave Bukovina in January 1849 for France, where he continued to work for the Romanian cause. Paradoxically, Moldovan failure and frustration in 1848 was rewarded in 1849 when, subsequent to the Treaty of Balta Liman (April), Grigore Ghica, a liberal reformer and unionist was named Prince of Moldova (1849-1856) by the Sultan. With him to Iaşi came Kogălniceanu, Al. I. Cuza, and other 1848ers who Ghica promptly installed in his new administration. A new day had dawned which, combined with the Crimean War, would eventually lead to the achievement in the 1850s and 1860s of most of the "wishes of the national party," and the practical conclusion of the Romanian 1848.

Kogalniceanu was appointed to various high level governmental positions after 1849, continued his prolific writing and cultural activities, and became the principal leader of the unionist movement that sought the creation of a Romanian national state through the merging of Moldova and Muntenia. His success in the campaign for elections to the Divan ad hoc led directly to the outmanuvering of the boiar opposition and triumph for the national party in the double election of Alexandru Ioan Cuza in 1859. From 1859 to 1865, Kogălniceanu was numerous times prime minister and the genius behind Cuza's internal reforms, including the secularization of the monasteries in 1863 and the agrarian reform of 1864.

Following Cuza's ouster in 1866, Kogălniceanu continued to be the leader of pragmatic reform liberalism in Romania, and was a cabinet member a number of times, including foreign minister in 1877-1878 when Romania achieved complete independence. He was elected to the Romanian Academy in 1868.

By temperament and education a conservative, Kogălniceanu was a democratic nationalist in the mold of Hardenberg and Stein, but not a radical. He believed in constitutional government, civil liberties, and other liberal positions, but gave precedence to the nation over the individual. These views and prudent attitude were typical of the Moldovan generation of 1848. As a politician, orator, and a cultural leader, Kogălniceanu played key and indispensable roles in the development of modern Romania for more than half a century, before, during, and after 1848.

Legacy

The Mihail Kogălniceanu International Airport (situated in the commune of Mihail Kogălniceanu, 26 km Northwest of Constanţa), bears his name.

Mihail Kogălniceanu University in Iaşi (founded in 1990), is the first private university in Moldavia. UMK site

References

• Template:Ro icon Mihail Kogălniceanu, Dezrobirea ţiganilor, ştergerea privilegiilor boiereşti, emanciparea ţăranilor
• "Mihail Kogălniceanu", in the Encyclopedia of Revolutions of 1848, at the University of Ohio
• Ştefan Gorovei, "Kogălnicenii", in Magazin Istoric, July 1977