Ion Heliade-Radulescu

(also I. Eliade Rădulescu). Born Jan. 6, 1802, in Tirgovişte; died Apr. 27, 1872, in Bucharest. Rumanian poet.

Heliade-Rădulescu laid the foundations of Rumanian theater, journalism, and publishing. He was a member of the provisional revolutionary government that was established in 1848. He founded the Rumanian Literary Society in 1866, and in 1867 he became the first president of the Rumanian Academic Society (renamed the Rumanian Academy in 1879). Heliade-Rădulescu produced fables, satires, elegies, and narrative poems. In his poetry, which drew on folklore and the heroic past of the Rumanian people, he subordinated romantic motifs to an Enlightenment tendency. Heliade-Rădulescu’s best works were Night in the Ruins of Tîrgoviste (1836) and the narrative poem Winged Spirit (1844).