Nicolae Iorga

Born in Botoșani in 1871, Nicolae Iorga became one of Romania's most influential historians and men of letters. He taught at the University of Bucharest from a young age and built a remarkable reputation through his studies of Romanian, Balkan, and universal history.

Iorga was far more than an academic. He was also a literary critic, memoirist, playwright, journalist, and political figure, helping found the Democratic Nationalist Party and later serving briefly as Romania's prime minister in 1931–1932. His writing output was extraordinary, and his voice shaped public debate for decades.

For listeners coming to his work today, what stands out is the scale of his curiosity: he treated history as something alive, closely tied to national identity, culture, and civic life. He was killed in November 1940, and his death has remained one of the most painful episodes in modern Romanian intellectual history.