Șerban I. Cantacuzino

Șerban Cantacuzino

Șerban I. Cantacuzino , name variants Servan Cantacuzenos , Cantacuzene , Cantocuzino (* around 1640 ; † October 28, 1688 in Bucharest ) was a Wallachian voivode who ruled between 1678 and 1688.

Life

The prince came from the Romanian branch of the Greek Kantakuzenos family , which also included the Byzantine emperor Johannes Kantakuzenos . Since he and his country were dependent on the Ottoman Empire , he had to take part in the Second Turkish Siege of Vienna in 1683 with a contingent of troops on the side of the Turks . Before Vienna his troops were in the area of ​​the suburb of Roßau , Cantacuzino had set up his residence in the Servite monastery. He is said to have set up a wooden cross at the other end of town, in the so-called Gatterhölzl in today's Meidling district , in front of which he is said to have prayed secretly. This so-called Moldavian cross was found after the siege and set up again.

Cantacuzino provided the trapped Viennese with information about the troop strength, combat strength and supplies of the Turks several times, which contributed significantly to the perseverance of the besieged. Cantacuzino directly encouraged the Viennese to persevere.

After the withdrawal of the Turks and the military successes of the Austrians, Cantacuzino and his troops separated from the Turks and tried to implement an independent policy between the great powers of Austria and the Ottoman Empire, but this led to considerable irritation within the Romanian boyars , who were the princes regarded as unpredictable. Rumor has it that he was poisoned as a result.

His son Gheorghe Cantacuzino later ruled Little Wallachia as Ban .

meaning

Cantacuzino's permanent achievements are:

• his services to the city of Vienna during the Turkish siege in 1683. As a grateful memory of this, Cantacuzinogasse was named after him in Vienna in 1906, and it carried this name until 1919. In 1983, on the occasion of the 300th anniversary of the Second Turkish Siege, a bust of Șerban Cantacuzino was placed at the Moldovan Cross on the initiative of the Romanian community living in Vienna .
• the introduction of corn cultivation in Romania
• the establishment of printing works in Bucharest and his commission for the complete translation of the Bible into Romanian in 1688. This Cantacuzino or Bucharest Bible (Biblia adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a Vechiului și Noului Testament) was written in Cyrillic by the brothers Radu and Șerban Greceanu was of great importance in the development of a written Romanian language. For a long time it remained the standard translation of the Romanian Orthodox Church .

Pictures of the bust of Șerban Cantacuzino in Vienna at Gatterhölzl

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literature

• Manfred Stoy: Romanian princes in early modern Vienna . In: Yearbook of the Association for the History of the City of Vienna 46, 1990, ISSN  1011-4726 , pp. 153-180
• The Romanians and the Siege of Vienna in 1683. Articles . Editura Meridiane, Bucharest 1983.

Web links

Commons : Șerban Cantacuzino  - collection of images, videos and audio files