Vasile Pogor
Romanian politician and academic
Died when: 72 years 212 days (871 months)Star Sign: Leo
Vasile V.Pogor (Francized Basile Pogor;August 20, 1833 – March 20, 1906) was a Moldavian, later Romanian poet, philosopher, translator and liberal conservative politician, one of the founders of Junimea literary society.
Raised in the aristocratic circle of Ia?i, and educated in the French Empire, he had a career in law.
He was a civil servant during the United Principalities regime, held seats and commissions in the Assembly of Deputies, and, after the proclamation of the Kingdom of Romania, was Mayor of Ia?i City.
Although he had a major role in creating the Conservative Party, by fusing together the various "White" political clubs and Masonic Lodges, Pogor was more loyal to the Junimist inner faction, and stood by it when it split with the other Conservatives.
An irreligious evolutionist, and taking an interest in Buddhist studies, Pogor represented the Positivist cell at Junimea.He was also one of the first locals to study the work of Henry Thomas Buckle, integrating Bucklean concepts into Junimea's critique of nation building.
He supported Romania's Westernization within a conservative framework, tempering nationalist presumptions and valuing a culturally pluralistic society.The notoriously indolent and improvident Pogor had a preference for orality, and was sought after for his Voltairian wit.
He left few written works, and many unfulfilled projects, but influenced Romanian literature as a cultural promoter, sponsor, and the first local expert on Charles Baudelaire.
He was known to his Junimea colleagues as a one-man "contemporary library".Pogor's final decades were spent away from the national scene, although he still took on assignments in the Conservative and Junimist chapters of Ia?i County. , his main residence, is closely associated with Junimist history.
Although sold by its debt-stricken owner in 1901, it was revived in the 1970s as a literary history museum, theater venue and concert hall.
Married to the Russian aristocrat Elena Hartingh, Pogor left an illegitimate son, Vasile Panopol.
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