Alexandru Ioan Cuza

Alexandru Ioan Cuza

My hero is one of the most important representatives of Romania's history, the brave ruler Alexandru Ioan Cuza, who lived in the 19th century. At that time, Romania was divided into three principalities: Moldavia, Wallachia and Transylvania, the latter being under Austro-Hungarian occupation.

Alexandru Ioan Cuza participated in the 1848 revolutionary movement in Moldavia and fought for the union of the three Romanian principalities. On January 5th 1859 he was elected ruler of Moldavia and soon after, on January 24th of Wallachia. There was a deal between the great powers in Europe who accepted a rather formal union between the two countries, with different governs but some common institutions. In 1862, Alexandru Ioan Cuza managed to unify the parliament and the government, achieving the political union, forming united state, and adopting the official name of Romania, with capital in Bucharest.

He was the first ruler of the national state of Romania. After the union, he and his prime minister initiated some significant internal reforms, the most important ones being the agrarian reform and the reform of the education system, giving thus real possibilities of progress and development of the country. Also, during his reign a new Civil Code was conceived, following the French model, the law of mandatory elementary school for all the citizens was elaborated and also the first universities were founded, one of them having his name even today.

During his reign the national army was also organized and the first railway was built in Romania, on a distance of 70 kilometers, by the English company Barkley-Stanisforth. The mentioned achievements were just the important ones among many other actions he took for the development and progress of the country, and indeed that was a flourishing period of the modern Romania's history. I have always admired his actions, his strong will to unify the Romanian principalities and especially his interest for developing education in our country, he will always be considered a hero by me.