Nicolae Bălcescu

Nicolae Bălcescu ( nikolaɛ bəltʃesku; born June 29, 1819 in Bucharest, † November 29, 1852 in Palermo, Kingdom of the Two Sicilies ) was a Romanian historian and writer and one of the leaders of the Romanian Revolution of 1848 in Wallachia.

Life

Bălcescu visited in Bucharest since 1832, the St. Sava Academy. At 19 he joined the army, where he was involved in the 1840 coup against Alexandru II Ghica. After the failure of the coup Bălcescu was imprisoned.

After he was free again, he traveled to France and Italy and began his journalistic activity. 1844 appeared the magazine istoric pentru Dacia. In Paris he joined in 1846 the Societatea studenţilor Români (Society of Romanian students ), who belonged to both Wallachian and Moldavian as members. The radical liberal Bălcescu said in the magazine istoric for land reform in Romania, which is why he found a positive assessment of the communist era.

In 1848 he traveled with impressions of the French Revolution from 1848 to Bucharest and took part in the Romanian Revolution. However, he quickly fell out with other revolutionary leaders and was eventually imprisoned by the Ottoman troops. When he was released, he went to Transylvania, where he was, however, expelled by the Hungarian authorities as Romanian separatist. He then emigrated to Constantinople Opel. After the revolution in Hungary in 1848 Bălcescu was launched as an intermediary between the Hungarian revolutionaries and Transylvanian Romanian separatists to Debrecen, however, it did not succeed to achieve a breakthrough between the warring groups.

In the last years of his life Bălcescu was especially active in journalism and wrote several comprehensive works on Romanian history.

Aftermath

Bălcescu was worshiped especially during the communist period in Romania. According to him, in particular streets and squares were named throughout the country.