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Alexander Mourouzis
Alexander Mourouzis ( el, Αλέξανδρος Μουρούζης; Romanian: Alexandru Moruzi (1750/1760 – 1816) was a Grand Dragoman of the Ottoman Empire who served as Prince of Moldavia and Prince of Wallachia. Open to Enlightenment ideas, and noted for his interest in hydrological engineering, Mourouzis was forced to deal with the intrusions of Osman Pazvantoğlu's rebellious troops. In a rare gesture for his period, he renounced the throne in Wallachia, and his second rule in Moldavia was cut short by the intrigues of French diplomat Horace Sébastiani. Biography A member of the Mourouzis family of Phanariotes and the son of Constantine Mourouzis (one of the few Ottoman-appointed Princes to die in office), he was educated to speak six languages in addition to Greek. His mother was a member of the Ghica family. Alexander was Grand Dragoman of the Porte under Sultan Selim III, in which capacity he helped mediate the 1791 Treaty of Jassy, ending the Russo-Turkish War of ...
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Nikiforos Lytras
Nikiforos Lytras ( el, Νικηφόρος Λύτρας; 1832 – 13 June 1904) was a Greek painter. He was born in Tinos and trained in Athens at the School of Arts. In 1860, he won a scholarship to Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Munich. After completing these studies, he became a professor at the School of Arts in 1866, a position he held for the rest of his life. He remained faithful to the precepts and principles of the Munich School, while paying greatest attention both to ethnographic themes and portraiture. His most famous portrait was of the royal couple, Otto and Amalia, and his most well-known landscape a depiction of the region of Lavrio. Biography Nikiforos Lytras was the son of a popular marble sculptor. In 1850, at the age of eighteen years he went to Athens to study in the School of Arts. He studied painting with Ludwig Thiersch and Raffaelo Ceccoli (c.1800-after 1860). After graduating in 1856, he began teaching an elementary course in writing. In 1860 with ...
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Age Of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment or the Enlightenment; german: Aufklärung, "Enlightenment"; it, L'Illuminismo, "Enlightenment"; pl, Oświecenie, "Enlightenment"; pt, Iluminismo, "Enlightenment"; es, La Ilustración, "Enlightenment" was an intellectual and philosophical movement that dominated Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries with global influences and effects. The Enlightenment included a range of ideas centered on the value of human happiness, the pursuit of knowledge obtained by means of reason and the evidence of the senses, and ideals such as liberty, progress, toleration, fraternity, and constitutional government. The Enlightenment was preceded by the Scientific Revolution and the work of Francis Bacon, John Locke, and others. Some date the beginning of the Enlightenment to the publication of René Descartes' ''Discourse on the Method'' in 1637, featuring his famous dictum, ''Cogito, ergo sum'' ("I think, therefore I am"). Others cite the publication of Isaac ...
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Selim III
Selim III ( ota, سليم ثالث, Selim-i sâlis; tr, III. Selim; was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1789 to 1807. Regarded as an enlightened ruler, the Janissaries eventually deposed and imprisoned him, and placed his cousin Mustafa on the throne as Mustafa IV. Selim was subsequently killed by a group of assassins. Early life Selim III was the son of Sultan Mustafa III and his wife Mihrişah Sultan. His mother Mihrişah Sultan originated in Georgia, and when she became the Valide Sultan, she participated in reforming the government schools and establishing political corporations. His father Ottoman Sultan Mustafa III was very well educated and believed in the necessity of reforms. Mustafa III attempted to create a powerful army during the peacetime with professional, well-educated soldiers. This was primarily motivated by his fear of a Russian invasion. During the Russo-Turkish War, he fell ill and died of a heart attack in 1774. Sultan Mustafa was aware of th ...
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Grand Dragoman Of The Porte
The Dragoman of the Sublime Porte (Ottoman Turkish: ; el, �έγαςδιερμηνέας της Υψηλής Πύλης), Dragoman of the Imperial Council (''tercümân-ı dîvân-ı hümâyûn''), or simply Grand or Chief Dragoman (''tercümân başı''), was the senior interpreter of the Ottoman government and ''de facto'' deputy foreign minister. From the position's inception in 1661 until the outbreak of the Greek Revolution in 1821, the office was occupied by Phanariotes, and was one of the main pillars of Phanariote power in the Ottoman Empire. History In the Ottoman Empire, the existence of official interpreters or dragomans (from the Italian rendering of Arabic , Ottoman ) is attested from the early 16th century. They were part of the staff of the ('head secretary'), who was responsible for foreign affairs within the Imperial Council. As few Ottoman Turks ever learned European languages, from early times the majority of these men were of Christian origin—in the m ...
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Ghica Family
The Ghica family ( ro, Ghica; sq, Gjika; el, Γκίκας, ''Gikas'') was a noble family active in Wallachia, Moldavia and in the Kingdom of Romania, between the 17th and 19th centuries. The Ghica family produced many voivodes of Wallachia and Moldavia and two Prime Ministers of Romania. Several branches of the family still exist today. History Origins The Ghica family is of Albanian origin. The first recorded Ghica in historical records is Gheorghe Ghica. His family originally came from Albania and the wider region of Epirus and was possibly born in North Macedonia, south of the city of Skopje, in Köprülü (present-day Veles). Köprülü as his birthplace may be a later mistake based on Ion Neculce's literary narrative about his ties to Köprülü Mehmed Pasha. Mihai Cantacuzino in the 18th century place his geographical origin ''from the Albanians of Zagora, in the region of Ianina''. In all available historical sources, despite the discrepancies about his exact bi ...
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Greek Language
Greek ( el, label= Modern Greek, Ελληνικά, Elliniká, ; grc, Ἑλληνική, Hellēnikḗ) is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece, Cyprus, southern Italy ( Calabria and Salento), southern Albania, and other regions of the Balkans, the Black Sea coast, Asia Minor, and the Eastern Mediterranean. It has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning at least 3,400 years of written records. Its writing system is the Greek alphabet, which has been used for approximately 2,800 years; previously, Greek was recorded in writing systems such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary. The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin, Cyrillic, Armenian, Coptic, Gothic, and many other writing systems. The Greek language holds a very important place in the history of the Western world. Beginning with the epics of Homer, ancient Greek literature includes many works of ...
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Constantine Mourouzis
Constantine Demetrius Mourouzis ( el, Κωνσταντίνος Δημήτριος Μουρούζης, Konstantinos Demetrios Mourouzis, ro, Constantin Dimitrie Moruzi), (1730 – 1 May 1787) was a Phanariote Prince of Moldavia, and member of the Mourousis family. A remarkable polyglot, he spoke five languages: Greek, Latin, French, Arabic and Turkish. In 1761, he became Grand ''Postelnic'' (foreign minister) in Moldavia, and soon after Dragoman of the Fleet (deputy minister) of the Ottoman Admiralty, and eventually Grand Dragoman. There are indications that he was politically involved in the dismissal and assassination of his predecessor, Grigore III Ghica, by the Porte.Brezianu, Andrei and Spânu, Vlad (eds.) (2007) "Moruzi. Constantin" ''Historical Dictionary of Moldova'' (2nd ed.) Scarecrow Press, Lanham, Maryland, USA, p. 250, Trusted by the Porte, he obtained the throne of Moldavia on October 12, 1770. Mourouzis spent much of his time in Iaşi, supervising the gather ...
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Phanariotes
Phanariots, Phanariotes, or Fanariots ( el, Φαναριώτες, ro, Fanarioți, tr, Fenerliler) were members of prominent Greek families in Phanar (Φανάρι, modern ''Fener''), the chief Greek quarter of Constantinople where the Ecumenical Patriarchate is located, who traditionally occupied four important positions in the Ottoman Empire: Voivode of Moldavia, Voivode of Wallachia, Grand Dragoman, and Grand Dragoman of the Fleet. Despite their cosmopolitanism and often-Western education, the Phanariots were aware of their Greek ancestry and culture; according to Nicholas Mavrocordatos' ''Philotheou Parerga'', "We are a race completely Hellenic". They emerged as a class of wealthy Greek merchants (of mostly noble Byzantine descent) during the second half of the 16th century, and were influential in the administration of the Ottoman Empire's Balkan domains in the 18th century. The Phanariots usually built their houses in the Phanar quarter to be near the court of the Patriar ...
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Mourouzis Family
The House of Mourouzis ( el, Μουρούζης) or Moruzi (russian: Мурузи, Muruzi) is the name of an old and distinguished noble family which was first mentioned in the Empire of Trebizond, whose members later occupied many important positions within Ottoman Empire, Wallachia, Moldavia, Russian Empire and Romania. History Its origins have been lost, but the two prevalent theories are that they were either a local family originating in a village which has a related name or else one that arrived with the Venetians during the Fourth Crusade (since there are records of a Venetian family with a similar name a generation earlier). They became one of the leading families of Phanariotes. The family moved to present-day Romania (the Danubian Principalities) in the 17th century, became Dragomans of the Porte and boyars, and gave Wallachia and Moldavia two '' hospodars'' – Princes Constantine and Alexander. Constantine's great grandson Demetrius fled to Russia after the out ...
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Alexandru Moruzi At Curtea Nouă
Alexandru is the Romanian form of the name Alexander. Common diminutives are Alecu, Alex, and Sandu. Origin Etymologically, the name is derived from the Greek "Αλέξανδρος" (Aléxandros), meaning "defending men" or "protector of men", a compound of the verb "ἀλέξω" (alexō), "to ward off, to avert, to defend" and the noun "ἀνδρός" (andros), genitive of "ἀνήρ" (anēr), "man". It is an example of the widespread motif of Greek (or Indo-European more generally) names expressing "battle-prowess", in this case the ability to withstand or push back an enemy battle line. The earliest attested form of the name is the Mycenaean Greek feminine noun ''a-re-ka-sa-da-ra'', (transliterated as ''Alexandra''), written in Linear B syllabic script. The name was one of the titles ("epithets") given to the Greek goddess Hera and as such is usually taken to mean "one who comes to save warriors". In the Iliad, the character Paris is known also as Alexander.
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Horace François Bastien, Baron Sébastiani
Quintus Horatius Flaccus (; 8 December 65 – 27 November 8 BC), known in the English-speaking world as Horace (), was the leading Roman Empire, Roman Lyric poetry, lyric poet during the time of Augustus (also known as Octavian). The rhetorician Quintilian regarded his ''Odes (Horace), Odes'' as just about the only Latin lyrics worth reading: "He can be lofty sometimes, yet he is also full of charm and grace, versatile in his figures, and felicitously daring in his choice of words."Quintilian 10.1.96. The only other lyrical poet Quintilian thought comparable with Horace was the now obscure poet/metrical theorist, Caesius Bassus (R. Tarrant, ''Ancient Receptions of Horace'', 280) Horace also crafted elegant Prosody (Latin), hexameter verses (''Satires (Horace), Satires'' and ''Epistles (Horace), Epistles'') and caustic Iambus (genre), iambic poetry (''Epodes (Horace), Epodes''). The hexameters are amusing yet serious works, friendly in tone, leading the ancient satirist Persius t ...
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