Nicolae Iorga

Born June 18, 1871, in Botosani; died Nov. 28, 1940, near Bucharest. Rumanian political figure, historian, and literary scholar; academician of the Rumanian Academy (1910).

In 1906, Iorga was one of the founders of the reactionary National Democratic Party. From 1918 to 1920 he served as chairman of the National Assembly and from 1931 to 1932 as prime minister and minister of public education. Iorga wrote numerous works on the history of Rumania, Turkey, and the Balkan countries; he also studied Rumanian literature of various periods and wrote the History of Romance Literatures. He founded the literary movement known as Sämänätorism (from the name of the journal, Sămănătorul [The Sower]), which emerged as a result of the intensification of the peasant question in Rumania. As leader of the movement, Iorga called for the creation of a literature that could be understood equally by “lord and peasant.” In foreign policy, he supported an Anglo-French orientation. During the last years of his life, he denounced the aggressive policy of fascist Germany. He was killed in 1940 by fascists belonging to the Iron Guard.