Iancu Văcărescu was a Romanian

Romanians

The Romanians are an ethnic group native to Romania, who speak Romanian; they are the majority inhabitants of Romania....

 Wallachia

Wallachia

Wallachia or Walachia is a historical and geographical region of Romania. It is situated north of the Danube and south of the Southern Carpathians...

n boyar

Boyar

A boyar, or bolyar , was a member of the highest rank of the feudal Moscovian, Kievan Rus'ian, Bulgarian, Wallachian, and Moldavian aristocracies, second only to the ruling princes , from the 10th century through the 17th century....

 and poet, member of the Văcărescu family

Vacarescu family

The Văcărescu family was a boyar family of Wallachia .According to tradition it is one of the oldest noble families in Wallachia.* Enache Văcărescu grand treasurer of Wallachia...

.

Biography

The son of Alecu Văcărescu

Alecu Vacarescu

Alecu Văcărescu was a Romanian Wallachian boyar and poet, of the Văcărescu family that gave Romanian literature its first poets. His son, Iancu Văcărescu, was also a poet.-References:- See also:*Văcărescu family...

, descending from a long line of Wallachian men of letters

Intellectual

An intellectual is a person who uses intelligence and critical or analytical reasoning in either a professional or a personal capacity.- Terminology and endeavours :"Intellectual" can denote four types of persons:...

 — his paternal uncle, Ienăchiţă Văcărescu

Ienachita Vacarescu

Ienăchiţă Văcărescu was a Wallachian Romanian poet, historian, philologist, and boyar belonging to the Văcărescu family...

, was author of the first Romanian grammar

Romanian grammar

Standard Romanian shares largely the same grammar and most of the vocabulary and phonological processes with the other three surviving varieties of Eastern Romance, viz...

; Iancu was the grandfather of writer Elena Văcărescu

Elena Vacarescu

Elena Văcărescu or Hélène Vacaresco was a Romanian-French aristocrat writer, twice a laureate of the Académie française.-Life:...

. He received a quality education not only in Greek

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

 (the preferred language of teaching in Wallachia at the time), but also in German

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

 and French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

, and was well versed in Western literature

Western literature

Western literature refers to the literature written in the languages of Europe, including the ones belonging to the Indo-European language family as well as several geographically or historically related languages such as Basque, Hungarian, and so forth...

.

A patriot

Patriotism

Patriotism is a devotion to one's country, excluding differences caused by the dependencies of the term's meaning upon context, geography and philosophy...

 during the Phanariote epoch

Phanariotes

Phanariots, Phanariotes, or Phanariote Greeks were members of those prominent Greek families residing in Phanar , the chief Greek quarter of Constantinople, where the Ecumenical Patriarchate is situated.For all their cosmopolitanism and often Western education, the Phanariots were...

, he sided with the national movement in 1821 (around Tudor Vladimirescu

Tudor Vladimirescu

Tudor Vladimirescu was a Wallachian Romanian revolutionary hero, the leader of the Wallachian uprising of 1821 and of the Pandur militia. He is also known as Tudor din Vladimiri or — occasionally — as Domnul Tudor .-Background:Tudor was born in Vladimiri, Gorj County in a family of landed peasants...

's Wallachian Uprising

Wallachian uprising of 1821

The Wallachian uprising of 1821 was an uprising in Wallachia against Ottoman rule which took place during 1821.-Background:...

), and assisted in establishing the Romanian theatre, translating many books and plays from German and French into Romanian, notably the Britannicus

Britannicus (play)

Britannicus is a tragic play by the French dramatist Jean Racine.The play, produced in 1669, was the first time Racine had tried his hand at depicting Roman history. The tale of moral choice takes as its subject Britannicus, the son of the Roman emperor Claudius, and heir to the imperial throne...

of Racine

Jean Racine

Jean Racine , baptismal name Jean-Baptiste Racine , was a French dramatist, one of the "Big Three" of 17th-century France , and one of the most important literary figures in the Western tradition...

, a literary event of no small importance at the time. He inaugurated modern Romanian poetry. During the debates in the National Assembly over the drafting of an organic law

Organic law

An organic or fundamental law is a law or system of laws which forms the foundation of a government, corporation or other organization's body of rules. A constitution is a particular form of organic law for a sovereign state....

 for the Danubian Principalities

Danubian Principalities

Danubian Principalities was a conventional name given to the Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, which emerged in the early 14th century. The term was coined in the Habsburg Monarchy after the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca in order to designate an area on the lower Danube with a common...

 (see Regulamentul Organic

Regulamentul Organic

Regulamentul Organic was a quasi-constitutional organic law enforced in 1834–1835 by the Imperial Russian authorities in Moldavia and Wallachia...

), Văcărescu spoke out against Imperial Russian overseeing, and was placed under arrest before being exile

Exile

Exile means to be away from one's home , while either being explicitly refused permission to return and/or being threatened with imprisonment or death upon return...

d for the following years.

Văcărescu was also one of the founders of the modern Romanian school system. He wrote philosophical

Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...

 poems, and ballads that found their inspiration in folklore. The first volume of verse he published was in 1830.

Before the 1848 Wallachian revolution, he presided a literary society

Literary society

A literary society is a group of people interested in literature. In the modern sense, this refers to a society that wants to promote one genre of literature or a specific writer. Modern literary societies typically promote research about their chosen author or genre, publish newsletters, and hold...

 (Societatea Literară) which served as a front for the radical

Liberalism and radicalism in Romania

This article gives an overview of Liberalism and Radicalism in Romania. It is limited to liberal parties with substantial support, mainly proved by having had a representation in parliament. The sign ⇒ denotes another party in this scheme...

 secret association

Secret society

A secret society is a club or organization whose activities and inner functioning are concealed from non-members. The society may or may not attempt to conceal its existence. The term usually excludes covert groups, such as intelligence agencies or guerrilla insurgencies, which hide their...

Frăţia.

Published books

• Poezii alese (1830)
• Colecţie din poeziile domnului marelui logofăt Iancu Văcărescu (1848)