IANAKE VACARESCU – UN LETTRE ROUMAIN DES LUMIERES ET SON DESTIN POSTHUME
IANAKE VACARESCU – A ROMANIAN SCHOLAR OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT AND HIS POSTHUMOUS FATE

Summary/Abstract: Ianake Vacarescu (1740 – 1797) was a great Wallachian aristocrat who was famed both for his political and diplomatic qualities and for his scholarly qualities. He knew the languages of the Balkans, as well as Western languages. A poet in his free time, he wrote the first Romanian grammar (published in 1787). However, his unsung masterpiece is a History of the All-Powerful Ottoman Emperors [Istorie a prea puternicilor împărați otomani], written during his exile in Nikopol and Rhodes (1788 – 1794), a work based both on his experience and of his knowledge of Turkish, Western or Romanian authors, which was left in manuscript form for 70 years and is poorly known even now. Vacarescu’s work shows how necessary it still to re-read the Romanian texts of the 18th century in the context of Ottoman Europe’s transformation into the Balkan nations.

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