Alexandru Macedonski

Biography

The poet’s father’s side of the family moved into Wallachia at the start of the 1800s. Scholars disagree on their exact origins: George Călinescu traced them to South Slavs, specifically Serb rebels from Ottoman Macedonia, while Radu Florescu argued for a Bulgarian background. Romanian historian Constantin Velichi noted that Alexandru’s grandfather was a Bulgarian who eventually became Romanianized. That grandfather, Dimitrie, and his brother Pavel fought in the 1821 uprising against the Phanariote rulers, allied with the Filiki Eteria.

During the revolt’s end, Dimitrie switched to the Eteria’s side against Wallachian leader Tudor Vladimirescu and helped kill him. Both brothers served in Wallachia’s military under Russian envoys, and the Regulamentul Organic regime listed the family among the local nobility. Dimitrie married Zoe, whose father was either a Russian or Polish officer. Their son, also named Alexandru, was educated in Russia and advanced through the military and political ranks, joining the unified Land Forces after his ally Alexander John Cuza became Domnitor.

The elder Alexandru’s uncle Pavel and brother Mihail wrote poetry as amateurs. The poet’s mother, Maria Fisența, came from an aristocratic line of Oltenian boyars; her father may have descended from Russian immigrants who had merged into Oltenia’s nobility. She was adopted by the boyar Dumitrache Pârâianu, and the couple inherited the Adâncata and Pometești estates in Goiești, along the Amaradia Valley.