ALEXANDRU ODOBESCU (1834-1895)

Writer and historian. Born in Bucharest son of the general Ioan odobescu, chief of the Romanian army from 1848, who was against the Revolution. High scholl at "Sf. Sava". His mother, catinca (from a family of learned) takes him and his sister Maria to Paris. He gets a very solid classical culture at "College de France" and Sorbone. Is influenced by the banished Romanian revolutionaries (N. Balcescu, N. Golescu, C. A. Rosetti s.o.). In 1855, return to the country and dedicates himself to literature, archaeology, arts and teaching. He was minister of cults and public instruction. He had sustained the folklorists and written laudatory prefaces to G. Dem Teodorescu's Collection and Petre Ispirescu's fairy tales. He wrote a monumentally work, in French, about The Thesaury from Pietroasa (1889), a golden treasure found in 1837 at Pietroasa villages, Buzau county known as the Clucking Hen and the Golden Chickens. He had also written the History of Archaeology (1877 and other erudite studies.

His literary prose, inspired from history, is illustrated by two short stories: Mihnea-Voda cel Rau (1857) and Doamna Chiajna (1860), both written after the model of Alexandru Lapusneanu of C. Negruzzi. He had also punblished fairy tales: Jupin Ranica Vulpoiul, Tigrul pacalit, loved by children. his most valuable work is Pseudo-Kinegeticos (in Greek: False Hunting Paper). Is was written to be a forework for the book "The Hunter Manual" of C. C. Cornescu but it became a very original work about hunting. He dies tragically, by suicide on November 10, because of some complex social and familial circumstances

Last update: 2004, October 28
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