Dumitru C. Moruzi

Dumitru Constantin Moruzi (also known as Dimitrie Moruzi or Moruzzi; russian: Дмитрий Константинович Мурузи, ''Dmitry Konstantinovich Muruzi''; July 1 or 2, 1850 – October 9, 1914) was a Moldavian-born Imperial Russian and Romanian aristocrat, civil servant and writer. A scion of the prestigious Mourousis and Sturdza families, he was the son of adventurer Constantin D. Moruzi, who had switched his allegiance between Moldavia, Russia, and the United Principalities. Dumitru's uncle was Alexandru "Alecu" Moruzi, who briefly led the Moldavian government, while his stepsister Natalia Keșco-Moruzi was for a while queen of Serbia. Dumitru was also the maternal uncle of historian Gheorghe I. Brătianu.

A French-trained man of letters, Moruzi held office with the Russian military bureaucracy during the Turkish War of 1877. Against his father's Russophilia, he opted for Romanian nationalism and, in the process, lost his family estates in Bessarabia. He emigrated to the newly formed Kingdom of Romania and took up Romanian nationality in the 1880s. He then helped administer Northern Dobruja—playing an important part in the modernization of Sulina, and also in the ethnic colonization of the region.

It was also in Sulina that Moruzi contacted illnesses which eventually left him deaf and bedridden. Financially destitute, he tried to earn his living as an opera composer, before becoming a journalist. Moruzi began writing analyses of Tsarist autocracy during the Russian Revolution of 1905, when he asserted that the multinational empire would crumble along ethnic lines. These serialized essays slowly earned the attention and enthusiasm of more prominent nationalists, including historian Nicolae Iorga. The latter brought Moruzi into contact with his '' Sămănătorist'' circle, hosting his memoirs and articles in '' Neamul Românesc'' and ''Unirea'', and welcoming him into the ranks of the Democratic Nationalist Party.

Moruzi's main literary contributions are social novels, fictionalizing his family history and, overall, the shared destiny of Bessarabian elites. Such works blend a message of nationalism and conservatism, which veers into antisemitism and anti-Masonry, with the classical tradition of storytelling. They were circulated among Romanian intellectuals on both sides of the border and earned critical accolades, but failed to make a significant impact in culture. Posthumously censored in both Communist Romania and the Soviet Union, Moruzi was recovered after 1993, being recognized as an early contributor to both Romanian and Moldovan literature.

Biography

Origins and childhood

Dumitru Moruzi belonged to the Mourousis family, which formed part of a wave of Greek immigrants to Moldavia; integrated by the local aristocracy, or boyardom, they had originated in the Empire of Trebizond and settled in Istanbul in the 17th century. Florin Marinescu
"Un basarabean înflăcărat. Scriitorul Dumitru C. Moruzi"
in ''Revista Limba Română'', Nr. 5–6/2012 He was a direct descendant of Phanariote royalty, his great-great-grandfather, Constantine Mourousis, having served as Prince of Moldavia in 1777–1782. Constantine's first-born son Alexander also rose to that position, and briefly took the princely throne of Wallachia. Both he and his father were intellectuals and modernizers, with Alexander remembered as one of the founders of Romanian Freemasonry and a sponsor of Neoclassical architecture.

Alexander's brother was the ''Beizadea'' Dimitrie, who served as ''Dragoman'' of the Ottoman Empire, and helped draft the Bucharest treaty of 1812. Through it, Moldavia ceded Bessarabia to the Russian Empire—an episode which seemingly pointed to Dimitrie's divided loyalties.Constanța Vintilă-Ghițulescu, "Un jurnal și o călătorie la Istanbul. Introducere", in Dimitrie Foti Merișescu, ''Tinerețile unui ciocoiaș. Viața lui Dimitrie Foti Merișescu de la Colentina scrisă de el însuși la 1817'', p. 21. Bucharest: Humanitas, 2019. His failure to protect Ottoman interests resulted in his hanging by the Janissaries of Shumla. In 1820, the office of ''Dragoman'' was held by his nephew Constantine, similarly executed for failing to denounce his friends in the Filiki Eteria. The family had to flee Ottoman territory, including the Danubian Principalities, after several of its members fought in the Greek War of Independence. They became Russian nationals, but managed to preserve their Moldavian estates by subterfuge—formally passing them to a branch of the Rosetti family.M. Kogălniceanu, p. 1134 A claim to the Moldavian inheritance was stated by one of Dumitru's paternal uncles, Alexandru "Alecu" Moruzi (ca. 1815–1878), who married a daughter of ''Hatman'' Răducanu Ruset (Rosetti). Historian and polemicist Mihail Kogălniceanu argued that, by 1861, the family was still entirely Greek, their Rosetti connection being a "weak foundation" for their claims to Moldavian roots. Also according to Kogălniceanu, in the 1830s the Moruzis had Russian passports, with Alecu asking to be addressed by a non-Moldavian title, as ''Knyaz'' Moruzi.

Dumitru's father, Constantin Moruzi (1816–1886), or Costache Moruz Pecheanu, was an officer of the Hellenic Navy. He had a son by his first wife, Pulheria Cantacuzino: Russian diplomat Alexandru C. Moruzi (1842–1900). Constantin had inherited estates in both Moldavia and Wallachia, including Făurei, Vrancea County. Attracted to liberal ideas, he had reportedly tried to manumit his Romani slaves, but was forced to rescind when they rebelled. The Romanies were organized into a private army, which, in 1846, prepared to march on Iași against the reigning Moldavian Prince, Mihail Sturdza. Later, the Moruzi brothers participated in the Moldavian Revolution of 1848, with Constantin personally meeting Prince Sturdza to hand him the letter signed by hundreds of protesters. Alecu was swiftly arrested and deported into the Danube Vilayet; Constantin became an outlaw and was widely suspected of collecting another private army, before being captured and expelled to Russia. A colorful character, he once appeared in Spanish costume on the balcony of an Odessa hotel, proclaiming himself the last descendant of Trebizond's emperors. He declared that a man as handsome as he only appeared once a century.Penelea Filitti, p. 62

Returning home in the 1850s, Constantin married a second time, to Princess Ecaterina Sturdza. This granddaughter of Prince Ioan Sturdza was reportedly very ugly but also highly intelligent and energetic; she was Dumitru's mother. Born in Iași, Dumitru spent his first four years at Făurei, which he later declared to be his favorite place in the world. During that interval, his father became rivals with Prince Grigore Alexandru Ghica. Still holding Russian citizenship, he may have acted as a Russian agent of influence in Moldavia. In 1854, at the height of the Crimean War, Constantin and his family crossed from Moldavia-proper into Bessarabia (by then a Russian governorate). This was done upon orders from the Austrian occupation authorities, Răzvan Voncu
"Un sămănătorist basarabean"
in ''România Literară'', Nr. 38/2015 on a request from the Ottoman army, or, alternatively, from Prince Ghica himself. In the 1860s, Constantin was directly involved in Russian censorship of Moldavian liberal newspapers and magazines.

In March 1857, following the death of ''Caimacam'' Teodor Balș, Alecu Moruzi was credited with real chances of succeeding him as Prince, but the regency was prolonged, and went to Nicolae Vogoride. According to Kogălniceanu, Alecu was an absentee landlord and an apolitical figure throughout most of the decade, before finally taking a seat in the 1858 Assembly; other accounts suggest that he had rallied with the National Party, before becoming a civilian administrator of Galați. The other Moruzis returned to during the same period, while Moldavia was merging with Wallachia into the United Principalities—however, they still commuted to Bessarabia, where they now owned the estate of Dănuțeni. Like his brother, Constantin supported the National Party, becoming friends with its candidate for princely office, Alexandru Ioan Cuza.

Exile and return

''Knyaz'' Alecu, meanwhile, briefly headed Moldavian government and preserved his seat in the Assembly—though his eligibility, including his citizenship, were openly questioned by Kogălniceanu. The latter eventually engineered the cabinet's downfall. Alecu then served on the first unified government of Romania as Minister of Finance, but resigned after only a few days. He joined other boyars in resisting Cuza and Kogălniceanu's land reform project, favoring a more conservative proposal also advanced in Parliament by Dimitrie Ghica and Apostol Arsache. Alecu mounted the boyars' last stand, to the point of asking for mediation by Austria. He had four children who married into Russian and European aristocracy, including Maria, who wed Cuza's son, the pretender Alexandru "Sașa" Cuza. She was later married for just one day with the Romanian politico Ion I. C. Brătianu, birthing his son, the historian Gheorghe I. Brătianu.

Cuza and the Moruzis disagreed on agrarian issues, but remained close on other points of policy. Alecu signed his name to various acts strengthening the Moldo–Wallachian union, and, a strong proponent of free trade, served on the board of Romania Bank. In early 1866, he was tipped to succeed Nicolae Crețulescu as Prime Minister of Romania, in what was supposed to be a "Russophile" cabinet. This plan crumbled the same year, with the rise of an anti-Cuza "monstrous coalition", which deposed the ''Domnitor''. Later that year, the Moruzis switched their allegiance to Moldavian separatism. Most controversially, both brothers instigated, with Calinic Miclescu, the Moldavian separatist riots. Unwelcome in Romania, from 1869 Constantin was recognized as a ''Knyaz'' and received into Russian nobility, serving terms as deputy in the ''Zemstvo'' of Bălți County, where he supported Bessarabian autonomism. The Bessarabian Moruzis sponsored literary gatherings, musical parties, and charities, and, in the 1870s, played host to the novelist Olga Nacu.

Dumitru spent the remainder of his childhood in Kishinev (Chișinău) and on his father's estates of Cosăuți

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