IANCU FLONDOR ŞI VLADIMIR DE REPTA
Iancu Flondor and Vladimir of Repta

Summary/Abstract: The study evokes and problematizes the relationship between the politician Iancu Flondor and the Metropolitan Vladimir of Repta, in Bukovina at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. It projects the collaboration between two leaders who had a major contribution to the unification of Bukovina with Romania. We highlight the fact that the two worked together in extremely dramatic historical moments, without any asperities, in the preparation and realization of the unification, because there was a very active mutual appreciation between them. The political and social context is briefly evoked. Bukovina, after the years 1870–1880, until the unification with Romania (November 28, 1918), entered a much accelerated dynamic of public life, especially political life. It was by no means a particular evolution, but, on the contrary, one of participation and integration into the rhythm of European modernity. The modernization of the administrative-political system in the Duchy of Bukovina, after 1861, the birth of electoral cycles and the electoral practice, with all its consequences in the social mentality, and the ongoing democratization of political rules gave acces to the Bukovina’s public arena to several political groups, with different political scenarios and choices. Thanks to the participation of the representatives of the Romanians from Bukovina in the provincial Parliament and in the central imperial bodies, in 1880 there was already a Romanian political movement, dominated by the so-called group of the “elder statesmen”, formed, however, from the extremely restricted circle of the Romanian nobles of Bukovina, descendants of old Moldavian boyar families. From this circle came the representatives of the Romanians from Bukovina in the regional and central governing bodies. It is precisely the elitism of this group that creates space for another political movement, called “the youth”, which claims the need to serve the needs of the entire community of Romanians in Bukovina. Iancu Flondor is part of this national political movement, i. e. of the “young Romanians” in Bukovina. Born on August 3, 1865, in Storojineţ, in the family manor, Iancu Flondor was 23 years younger than Vladimir of Repta. The Metropolitan was born on Christmas Day 1941, in Bănila Rusească, a village near the Cheremosch River, baptized under the name Vasile. Flondor was the descendant of a family of old Moldavian boyars, which was always involved in the political life of Bukovina after the annexation (1774). 120 Porfirie Pescaru 2Vladimir of Repta, a possible descendant of the boyar Ion Tăutu (1440–1511)according to some genealogical research, came, however, from a family of Romanian peasants. Both, however, were very educated people, with studies in Chernivtsi and Vienna. Iancu Flondor and Vladimir of Repta inherited the historical solidarity, the special communication between the Romanian boyars of Bukovina and the yeomen, created in the era of Stephen the Great and perpetuated until after the unification in 1918. The moral sensitivity and historical sense of the two certainly valued this typeof identity heritage: the national consciousness based on the history of medieval Moldavia and on Orthodoxy. What connects and then brings these two people so different in temperament and activity closer together is their heroic morality, coming from a deeply assumed ideal, expressed throughout their biographical journey in all their life choices. And, from the analysis of these heroic life choices, a rare capacity for sacrifice and self-offering results, both for the fulfillment of the ideal and for the protection of oneʼs neighbour.

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