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Alexandru Ioan Cuza (sau Alexandru Ioan I; n. 20 martie/1 aprilie 1820, Bârlad, Tutova, Moldova – d. 3/15 mai 1873, Heidelberg, Imperiul German[6]) a fost primul domnitor al Principatelor Unite și al statului național România. Prin alegerea sa ca domn al Moldovei, la 5 ianuarie 1859, și al Țării Românești, la 24 ianuarie 1859, a fost înfăptuită Unirea celor două principate.
Ales domnitor, Cuza a dus o susținută activitate politică și diplomatică pentru recunoașterea Unirii Moldovei și Țării Românești de către Puterea suzerană (Imperiul Otoman) și Puterile Garante și apoi pentru desăvârșirea Unirii Principatelor Române prin înfăptuirea unității constituționale și administrative. Aceasta s-a realizat în ianuarie 1862, când Moldova și Țara Românească au format statul român unitar modern, adoptând oficial numele de România,[7] cu capitala la București, cu o singură adunare și un singur guvern.
Ca domnitor, Alexandru Ioan Cuza a promovat reforme cu un caracter liberal[9] și profund progresist,[10][11][12] ce au dus la modernizarea statului și societății românești.
În anul 1866, o largă coaliție a partidelor vremii, cunoscută sub denumirea de Monstruoasa Coaliție din cauza orientărilor politice diferite ale membrilor săi, l-au forțat pe Alexandru Ioan Cuza să abdice.
Primii ani de viață
Alexandru Ioan Cuza s-a născut la Bârlad, fiind fiul ispravnicului Ioan Cuza, strănepotul revoluționarului Ioniță Cuza, proprietar de pământ în județul Fălciu, și al Sultanei (Soltana), membră a familiei de origini fanariote Cozadini.
A învățat carte mai întâi la Iași, în pensionul francez al lui Victor Cuénim, la fel ca Mihail Kogălniceanu și Vasile Alecsandri, viitorii lui colaboratori. Apoi la Paris, unde și-a luat bacalaureatul în litere în 1835, la Sorbona, diploma fiind semnată de François Guizot, ministrul instrucțiunii publice, obținând calificative lăudabile. Studiază la Facultatea de Drept pentru 2 ani, pe care nu o termină fiind obligat să se întoarcă în țară. În țară își continuă studiile împreună cu fratele său Dimitrie, la Academia Mihăileană.
Între noiembrie 1837 - aprilie 1839 Cuza s-a aflat din nou la Paris, unde a urmat studii în științele războiului și, probabil, le-a continuat pe cele de drept.
În toamna anului 1837 Cuza intră în armată cu gradul de cadet; obține o ”păsuire de la slujba de front” și pleacă din nou la Paris pentru a-și continua studiile juridice. La Paris cunoaște numeroși tineri revoluționari din ambele principate, însușindu-și ideile înaintate ale epocii.
Aparținând clasei tradiționale de boieri din Moldova, Alexandru primește o educație europeană și devine ofițer în armata moldovenească, ajungând la rangul de colonel. S-a căsătorit cu Elena Rosetti în 1844.
În anul 1848, Moldova și Țara Românească, precum majoritatea statelor europene, au fost cuprinse de febra revoluțiilor. Revolta moldovenilor a fost suprimată repede, dar în Țara Românească revoluționarii au preluat puterea și au guvernat în timpul verii. Tânărul Cuza a participat activ la mișcarea revoluționară de la 1848 din Moldova și la lupta pentru unirea Principatelor. Urmare înclinațiilor liberale manifestate în timpul episodului moldovenesc, este transportat ca prizonier la Viena, de aici fiind eliberat cu ajutor britanic.
Revenind în Moldova în timpul domniei Prințului Grigore Alexandru Ghica, a fost numit ministru de război (1858) și a reprezentat orașul Galați în divanul ad-hoc de la Iași. Prin toată activitatea sa politică, Alexandru Ioan Cuza a susținut continuu unirea Moldovei și Țării Românești.
A fost nominalizat în cele două Principate, de către Partida Națională, care milita pentru Unire, în defavoarea unui prinț străin. Ca urmare a contextului politic și a compromisului dintre principalele partide, este ales domn al Moldovei pe 17 ianuarie 1859 (5 ianuarie după calendarul iulian) și în Țara Românească pe 5 februarie 1859 (24 ianuarie după calendarul iulian).
Alexandru Ioan Cuza (Romanian: [alekˈsandru iˈo̯aŋ ˈkuza] ⓘ, or Alexandru Ioan I, also Anglicised as Alexander John Cuza; 20 March 1820 – 15 May 1873) was the first domnitor (prince) of the Romanian Principalities through his double election as Prince of Moldavia on 5 January 1859 and Prince of Wallachia on 24 January 1859, which resulted in the unification of the two states. He was a prominent figure of the Moldavian Revolution of 1848. Following his double election, he initiated a series of liberal[1] and progressive[2][3][4] reforms that contributed to the modernization of Romanian society and of state structures.
As ruler of the Romanian Principalities, he supported a political and diplomatic activity for the recognition of the union of Moldavia and Wallachia by the suzerain Ottoman Empire and achieved constitutional and administrative unity between Moldavia and Wallachia in 1862, when the Romanian Principalities officially adopted the name Romanian United Principalities with a single capital at Bucharest, a single national assembly and a single government.
Cuza's reform policies alienated a large coalition of conservatives and radical liberals, for the most part landowners and business owners. On 22 February 1866, he was forced to abdicate and leave the country. Today, he is often considered one of the founders of the modern Romanian state and a national hero of Romania.[5][6]
Early life
Born in Bârlad, Cuza belonged to the traditional boyar class in Moldavia, the son of Ispravnic Ioan Cuza (who was also a landowner in Fălciu County) and his wife, Sultana (or Soltana), a member of the Cozadini family of Phanariote and Genovese origins.[7] Alexander received an urbane European education in Jassy, Pavia, Bologna, and Athens; after a brief period of military service, he was also educated in Paris from 1837 to 1840. He became an officer in the Moldavian Army and rose to the rank of colonel. Alexandru married Princess Elena Rosetti in 1844.
During the Revolutions of 1848, Moldavia and Wallachia fell into revolt. The Moldavian unrest was quickly suppressed, but in Wallachia the revolutionaries took power and governed during the summer. Young Cuza played a prominent enough part to establish his liberal credentials. He was shipped to Vienna as a prisoner, where he made his escape with British support.
Returning during the reign of Prince Grigore Alexandru Ghica, he became Moldavia's minister of war in 1858; he also represented Galați in the ad hoc Divan at Iași. Cuza was acting freely under the guarantees of the European Powers in the eve of the Crimean War for recognition of a Prince of Moldavia. Cuza was a prominent speaker in the debates and strongly advocated the union of Moldavia and Wallachia. In default of a foreign prince, he was nominated as a candidate in both principalities by the pro-unionist Partida Națională (profiting of an ambiguity in the text of the Treaty of Paris). Cuza was finally elected as Prince of Moldavia on 17 January 1859 (5 January Julian) and, after "street pressure" changed the vote in Bucharest, also Prince of Wallachia, on 5 February 1859 (24 January Julian), effectively uniting both principalities. He received the firman from the Sultan on 2 December 1861 during a visit to Istanbul. He was a recipient of the Order of Medjidie, Order of Osmanieh, Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus, and Order of the Redeemer.[9]
Although he and his wife Elena Rosetti had no children, she raised as her own children his two sons by his mistress Elena Maria Catargiu-Obrenović: Alexandru Al. Ioan Cuza (1864–1889), and Dimitrie Cuza (1865–1888 suicide).
Reign
Diplomatic efforts
Thus Cuza achieved a de facto union of the two principalities. The Powers backtracked, with Napoleon III of France remaining supportive, while the Austrian ministry withheld approval of such a union at the Congress of Paris (18 October 1858); partly as a consequence, Cuza's authority was not recognized by his nominal suzerain, Abdülaziz, the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, until 23 December 1861. Even then, the union was only accepted for the duration of Cuza's rule.
The union was formally declared three years later, on 5 February 1862, (24 January Julian), the new country bearing the name of Romania, with Bucharest as its capital city.
Cuza invested his diplomatic actions in gaining further concessions from the Powers: the sultan's assent to a single unified parliament and cabinet for Cuza's lifetime, in recognition of the complexity of the task. Thus, he was regarded as the political embodiment of a unified Romania.
Reforms
Assisted by his councilor Mihail Kogălniceanu, an intellectual leader of the 1848 revolution, Cuza initiated a series of reforms that contributed to the modernization of Romanian society and of state structures.
His first measure addressed a need for increasing the land resources and revenues available to the state, by nationalizing monastic estates in 1863.[11] Probably more than a quarter of Romania's farmland was controlled by untaxed Eastern Orthodox "Dedicated monasteries", which supported Greek and other foreign monks in shrines such as Mount Athos and Jerusalem, presenting a substantial drain on state revenues. Cuza got his parliament's backing to expropriate these lands.
During the secularization of the Antiochian Metochion in Bucharest, Cuza exiled its proistamenos the Metropolitan Ioannikios of Palmyra and arrested its hegumen Seraphim, later Metropolitan of Irenopolis in Isauria.[12][13] He offered compensation to the Greek Orthodox Church, but Sophronius III, the Patriarch of Constantinople, refused to negotiate; after several years, the Romanian government withdrew its offer and no compensation was ever paid. State revenues thereby increased without adding any domestic tax burden. The land reform, liberating peasants from the last corvées, freeing their movements and redistributing some land (1864), was less successful.[11] In attempting to create a solid support base among the peasants, Cuza soon found himself in conflict with the group of Conservatives. A liberal bill granting peasants title to the land they worked was defeated. Then the Conservatives responded with a bill that ended all peasant dues and responsibilities, but gave landlords title to all the land. Cuza vetoed it, then held a plebiscite to alter the Paris Convention (the virtual constitution), in the manner of Napoleon III.
His plan to establish universal manhood suffrage, together with the power of the Domnitor to rule by decree, passed by a vote of 682,621 to 1,307. This was an imperfect solution, still catering to the wealthy, and would be added onto with a constitution revision in 1866 after his abdication.[14] He consequently governed the country under the provisions of Statutul dezvoltător al Convenției de la Paris ("Statute expanding the Paris Convention"), an organic law adopted on 15 July 1864. With his new plenary powers, Cuza then promulgated the Agrarian Law of 1863. Peasants received title to the land they worked, while landlords retained ownership of one third. Where there was not enough land available to create workable farms under this formula, state lands (from the confiscated monasteries) would be used to give the landowners compensation.
Despite the attempts by Lascăr Catargiu's cabinet to force a transition in which some corvées were to be maintained, Cuza's reform marked the disappearance of the boyar class as a privileged group, and led to a channeling of energies into capitalism and industrialization; at the same time, however, land distributed was still below necessities, and the problem became stringent over the following decades – as peasants reduced to destitution sold off their land or found that it was insufficient for the needs of their growing families.
Cuza's reforms also included the adoption of the Criminal Code and the Civil Code based on the Napoleonic code (1864), a Law on Education, establishing tuition-free, compulsory public education for primary schools[11] (1864; the system, nonetheless, suffered from drastic shortages in allocated funds; illiteracy was eradicated about 100 years later, during the communist regime). He founded the University of Iași (1860) and the University of Bucharest (1864), and helped develop a modern, European-style Romanian Army, under a working relationship with France. He is the founder of the Romanian Naval Forces.
SOURCE: Wikipedia: The free enciclopedia
SOURCE LINK: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandru_Ioan_Cuza
From the right of the statue, it is placed in a little hole in the bush. Good luck!
