Nicolaos Mavrocordatos

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Nicolae Mavrocordat

Nicolaos Mavrocordatos (born May 3, 1680 in Constantinople ; † September 3, 1730 in Bucharest ) was Prince of Moldova twice (Nov. 17, 1709 - Nov. 1710 and 1711 - Jan. 5, 1716) and twice as Prince of Wallachia ( Nov. Jan. 1716 - Nov. 25, 1716 and March 1719 - Sept. 3, 1730).

Mavrocordatos was born on May 3, 1680 in Constantinople as the son of the great dragoman Alexandros Mavrokordatos from the Phanariote family Mavrokordatos . In 1698 he succeeded his father as the Great Dragoman. In 1709 Nicolaos, the first Greek, became prince of Moldavia and in 1715 of Wallachia. He was a student of the well-known geographer Chrysanthos Notaras (the later Patriarch of Jerusalem) and was considered a person with a high level of education. He spoke several foreign languages, had studied philosophy and theology and learned Romanian as soon as he came to the principalities.

During his first reign he made a name for himself by suppressing the boyars and protecting the peasantry. His enemies quickly used the dissatisfaction of the boyars and complaints from the Swedish King Charles XII. and achieved in 1710 the deposition of Mavrocordat and his replacement by Dimitrie Cantemir . However, Mavrocordatos returned to the throne immediately after Cantemir's flight to Russia (1711). Now he succeeded in driving the Swedish and Polish armed forces, which had become a real plague, out of Moldova.

In 1716 he came to the Wallachian throne after Prince Ștefan Cantacuzino had been murdered. The Porte urgently needed him there, as relations between Istanbul and the Reich had deteriorated significantly. When the Austro-Turkish War (1714-1718) broke out, Mavrocordat had several boyars who had sympathized with Austria executed and sent the Metropolitan Antim Ivireanu to Turkey, where he was killed. Since Nicolaos Mavrocordatos was captured and brought to Sibiu (Hermannstadt), the Ottomans appointed Ioannis Mavrocordatos as prince. After the Peace of Passarowitz in 1718 and the death of Ioannis Mavrocordatos, Nicolaos came back to the Bucharest throne and began a long and very quiet reign, which is also due to the goodwill of Istanbul. The autochthonous population of Wallachia was soon satisfied with his rule, for which the following aspects were decisive: the competent administration of the land, a reduction in tribute payments to the gate, a benevolent treatment of the boyars and the reduction of some taxes. The Romanians were rather annoyed by the prince's preference for the Greek element.

In addition to Bucharest, Mavrocordatos built the Văcăreşti monastery , he also obliged the bishopric in Bacău to maintain a Greek and a Slavonian school with the income granted.

September 3, 1730 Maurocordatos died in Bucharest on the plague and was buried in the monastery of Vacaresti. Mavrocordat was also an excellent writer. He wrote the following works in archaic Greek: "Nouthesiai" ("Advice", available in manuscript), "Peri Kathikonton" ("De officiis", printed in Bucharest 1719), "Psogos Nicotianis" ("Tadel des Nicotine", published in Iași 1786) and "Commentatio de litterarum studiis" (published in Jena 1755) and "Philotheou Parerga". The latter was written during the years of Maurocordatos' captivity in Transylvania, 1716–1718, and, in all probability, remained unfinished. The unfinished text was published in 1800 by the Greek enlightener Grigorios Konstantas. It is a narrative work that is literarily in the tradition of Boccaccio's "Decameron" and philosophically in that of Aristotelianism and the French moralists of the 17th century.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Josef Stummvoll, Society of Friends of the Austrian National Library: Biblos - Austrian Journal for Books and Libraries, page 297, Volume 29, 1980
personal data
SURNAME Mavrocordatos, Nicolaos
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mavrocordat, Nicolae
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Prince of Wallachia and Moldova
DATE OF BIRTH May 3, 1680
PLACE OF BIRTH Constantinople
DATE OF DEATH September 3, 1730
Place of death Bucharest