Dimitrie Cantemir (Дмитрий Кантемир in Russian, Kantemiroğlu in Turkish), (October 26, 1673 - 1723) was
a Moldavian Voievod (King), music composer, linguist, writer and scholar.
Born in 26 October 1673 in Silişteni as the son of the Moldavian Voivode Constantin Cantemir, from the boyar family of Cantemir (lower Moldavian nobility). His mother, Ana Bantas, was a learned and enlightened woman of noble origins. (However, not satisfied with his status, Cantemir later forged his paternal ancestry and pretended to descend from a (...non-existent...) Khan Temir, of Tartar origins.) His education began at home, where he learned Greek and Latin and acquired a profound knowledge of the classics. Between 1688 and 1710 he lived in forced exile in Constantinople (Istanbul), where he learned Turkish and studied the
history of the Ottoman Empire at Patriarchy's Greek Academy and where he also composed music.
In 1710 he returned to became Voievod of Moldavia.
He had ruled only for less than a year (1711) when he joined Peter the Great in his campaign against the Ottoman Empire and placed Moldavia under Russian suzerainty. Defeated by the Turks, Cantemir sought refuge to Russia, where he and his family finally settled. There, he was conferred the title of Prince of the Russian Empire by Peter the Great and received the title of Prince of the Holy Roman Empire by Charles VI. He died in his estate, to the north of actual Kharkov in 1723 (the very day he received the Roman-German princely diploma).
Cantemir's children were rather prominent in Russian history. His elder daughter Maria (1700-1754) attracted the attention of Peter the Great who allegedly planned to divorce his wife Catherine and marry her. Upon Catherine's ascension to the throne, she was forced to enter a convent. His son Antiokh (1708-1744) was the Russian ambassador in London and Paris, a prominent satirical poet and Voltaire's friend. Another son, Constantine (1703-1747), was implicated in the Galitzine conspiracy against Empress Anne and exiled to Siberia. Finally, Dimitrie's younger daughter Smaragda (1720-61), the wife of Prince Dmitriy M. Galitzine, was a friend of Empress Elizabeth and one of the great beauties of her
time.
Linguistic Interests : In 1714 Cantemir becomes a member of the Royal Academy of Berlin. Between 1711-1719 he writes his most important creations. Cantemir was known as one of the greatest linguists of his time, speaking and writing eleven languages, and being well versed in Oriental scholarship. He was a voluminous and original writer of great sagacity and deep penetration, and his writings range over many subjects. The best known is his
History of the Growth and Decay of the Ottoman Empire . This book circulated through Europe in manuscript for a number of years. It was finally printed in 1734 in London and later it was translated and printed in Germany and France. It remained the seminal work on the Ottoman Empire up to the middle of the 19-th century (afterwards, it was largely contested, for some of its sources were doubtful).
He also wrote: a history of oriental music, which is no longer extant; the first critical history of Romania under the name of
Historia Hieroglyphica , to which he furnished a key, and in which the principal persons are represented by animals; also the history of the two ruling houses of Brancoveanu and Cantacuzino (here, unfortunately for his reputation, Cantemir extensively forged and mystified); and a philosophical treatise, the book written in Romanian language, also in Greek, translated in Arabic, under the title
Divanul sau Gâlceava Înţeleptului cu lumea sau Giudeţul sufletului cu trupul ; in French:
Le divan ou la dispute du sage avec le monde ou le jugement de l'âme avec le corps ; in English
The Divan or The Wise Man's Parley with the World ordgement of the Soul with the Body.
At the request of the Royal Academy in Berlin, Cantemir wrote in 1714 the first geographical, ethnographical and economic descrif Moldavia,
Descriptio Moldaviae . As many of his books it circulated first in manuscript and was only later published in Germany (first in 1769 in a geographical magazine and then in 1771 the first edition as a book). Around the same time he prepared a manuscript map of Moldavia, the first real map of this country. It contained a lot of geographical detail as well as administrative information. It was printed in 1737 in the Netherlands and has been used by all cartographers of the time as an inspiration for their own maps of Moldavia