Vasile Lupu

Lupu Coci, known as Vasile Lupu (Romanian pronunciation: [vaˈsile ˈlupu]; 1595 – 1661), was the voivode of Moldavia between 1634 and 1653. He was of Albanian and Greek origin. Lupu had secured the Moldavian throne in 1634 after a series of complicated intrigues and managed to hold it for twenty years. Vasile was a capable administrator and a brilliant financier and was soon almost the richest man in the Christian East. His gifts to Ottoman leaders kept him on good terms with the Ottoman authorities.

Vasile Lupu
Prince of Moldavia (1st reign)
Reign	April 1634 – 13 April 1653
Predecessor	Moise Movilă
Successor	Gheorghe Ștefan
Prince of Moldavia (2nd reign)
Reign	8 May – 16 July 1653
Predecessor	Gheorghe Ștefan
Successor	Gheorghe Ștefan
Born	1595 Arbanasi
Died	1661 Constantinople
Issue	Ștefăniță Lupu Ruxandra Lupu Maria Lupu
Father	Neculai
Religion	Orthodox

The Coat of arms of Vasile Lupu.

Early life

The Coci family settled in Wallachia (Țara Rumânească) in the first half of the 16th century.^{[1][page needed]} His father, Nicolae (Neculai) Coci was an Albanian shopkeeper, the son of Constantin (Coce) and Ecaterina, who originated from Macedonia or Epirus.^{[2][3][4][5][6]} His mother was Greek.^[7][8] Nicolae entered Moldavian nobility in 1593.^{[9][page needed]} Nikolae was born in Arbanasi. According to different researchers it was a village in modern-day Bulgaria (Arbanasi^[10] or Dolno Arbanasi - today a suburb of Razgrad),^[11] while some historians claim Arbănași (modern Romania).^{[12][page needed]} Vasile Lupu received Greek education.^[13]

Reign

Portrait of Vasile Lupu on the Romanian Athaeneum wall.

Lupu had held a high office under Miron Barnovschi, and was subsequently selected Prince as a sign of indigenous boyars' reaction against Greek and Levantine competition.^{[citation needed]} This was because Vasile Lupu had led a rebellion against Alexandru Iliaș and his foreign retinue, being led into exile by Moise Movilă (although he was backed by Prince Matei Basarab and the powerful Pasha of Silistra, Abaza Mehmed Pasha). Despite having led the rebellion against Greek influence, Lupu maintained strong ties to the Greeks and the Patriarchate of Constantinople.^[14] He pursued a Greek-Orthodox policy and sought to become the new Byzantine Emperor.

His rule was marked by splendor and pomp. He was a builder of notable monuments (the unique Trei Ierarhi Monastery in Iași and the St. Paraskeva Church, Lviv, among others), a patron of culture and arts founding the Academia Vasiliană). These acts also had negative effects, the tax burdens being increased to an intolerable level.

After relations between the two Princes soured, Vasile Lupu spent much of his reign fighting the Wallachian Matei Basarab, trying to impose his son Ioan to the throne in Bucharest. His army was defeated twice in 1639 at Ojogeni and Nenișori and a third time, at Finta, in 1653. After this last battle, the Moldavian boyars rebelled and replaced him with the Wallachian favorite, Gheorghe Ștefan. Vasile Lupu went into exile and died while being kept in Turkish custody at Yedikule prison in Constantinople.

Lupu built a strong alliance with hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky, arranging the marriage of his own daughter Ruxandra Lupu to Khmelnytsky's son Tymofiy (Tymish), who went on to fight alongside Lupu at Finta.

Vasile Lupu made alliances with Ottoman officials, in particular with former Grand Vizier Tabanıyassı Mehmed Pasha. Lupu's association with the latter relied on their common Albanian origin.^[15]

Laws and reforms

Vasile Lupu introduced the first codified printed law in Moldavia, the Carte Românească de învățătură ("Romanian book of learning", 1646, published in Iași), known as the Pravila lui Vasile Lupu ("Vasile Lupu's code").^[16] The document follows Byzantine tradition, being a translated review of customs and almost identical to its Wallachian contemporary equivalent.

Endowments

Lupu founded churches and monasteries throughout his lands. The liturgical language was described as "vulgar Greek" by Robert Bargrave who travelled the lands.^[17]

Education

Lupu founded the Princely High School of Trei lerarhi Church in 1640, which taught in Greek and Latin.^[18]

Family

The Coci last name was carried on by Stefan Coci (son of Vasile Lupu) who married the daughter of Petru Rareș, a voivode of Moldavia, but also by the descendant of Gabriel Coci named Hatmanul. The descending line of Coci intersects with aristocratic families from Moldavia, old families such as the Bucioc, Boulesti, and Abazesti.

Vasile Lupu in a Moldovan stamp of 1999

Representation in postal stamps

Vasile Lupu is depicted in a stamp issued by the Post of Moldova in 1999 and in a stamp of Romania issued in 2019.

See also

• Synod of Iași
• Trei Ierarhi Monastery
• St. Paraskeva Church, Lviv

References

1. Revista istorică. 1993. Vasile Lupu se trage din familia Coci, venită în Țările Române încă din prima jumătate a secolului al XVI-lea, era al treilea fiu al lui Nicolae Coci, ...
2. R. W. Seton-Watson (1934). A History of the Roumanians. Cambridge University Press. p. 74. ISBN 978-1-107-51158-3.
3. Runciman 1985, p. 341.
4. Ioan Bolovan (1997). A History of Romania. Center for Romanian Studies. p. 287. Voivode of Moldavia was an Albanian from Arbanasi, probably with distant origin from Epirus, a region of mixed population. The majority of the population of the famous region is Greek and Albanian, but there live also thousands of "real Epirotes", the Romanian-speaking Vlachs of Pindus. This has served as a base for fabrications according to which Lupu was a Greek or a Vlach (Aromanian). Some Romanian historians explain that Epirote Vlachs are in fact Romanians and for this reason it is claimed Lupu was a Romanian. However, the most interesting fabrication is that Lupu was a Bulgarian because his father lived in Arbanasi, which today is part of Bulgaria.
5. Nicoară, Toader (2005). Sentimentul de insecuritate în societatea românească la începuturile timpurilor moderne 1600-1830 [The noble families of Moldova and Wallachia: Abaza-Bogdan] (in Romanian). Accent. pp. 129, 133, 152. ISBN 9789738445086.
6. Sturdza, Mihail-Dimitri, ed. (2004). Familiile boierești dîn Moldova și Țara Românească: Abaza-Bogdan (in Romanian). Simetria. p. 346. ISBN 9789738582170.
7. Iordachi, Constantin (2013). "From Imperial Entanglements to National Disentanglement: The "Greek Question" in Moldavia and Wallachia, 1611-1863". In Daskalov, Roumen Dontchev; Marinov, Tchavdar (eds.). Entangled Histories of the Balkans, Volume One: National Ideologies and Language Policies. Leiden: Brill. p. 94. ISBN 978-90-04-25075-8. ISSN 1877-6272. OCLC 851157146 – via Internet Archive.
8. Iordachi, Constantin (2019). Liberalism, constitutional nationalism, and minorities : the making of Romanian citizenship, c. 1750-1918. Leiden. p. 57. ISBN 978-90-04-40111-2. OCLC 1096227555.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
9. Constantin Șerban (1991). Vasile Lupu (in Romanian). Editura Academiei Române. ISBN 978-973-27-0205-5. Tot atît de sigur este faptul că Nicolae Coci a fost mare comis în Moldova (martie- aprilie 1593), pe timpul lui Aron vodă Tiranul, că apoi a trecut în Țara Românească, unde a fost mare postelnic (octombrie 1593 — 22 iulie 1594), apoi din nou ...
10. Stamatopoulos, Dimitris (2016-01-20). "The Poor Men of Christ and Their Leaders: Wealth and Poverty within the Christian Orthodox Clergy of the Ottoman Empire (Eighteenth to Nineteenth Century)". In Davidova, Evguenia (ed.). Wealth in the Ottoman and Post-Ottoman Balkans: A Socio-Economic History. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 90. ISBN 978-0-85772-605-6 – via Google Books.
11. Wasiucionek, Michal (2021). The Ottomans and Eastern Europe: Borders and Political Patronage in the Early Modern World. London: Bloomsbury Publishing (published 2019-06-27). p. 106. ISBN 978-1-78831-858-7.
12. Nicolae Ciachir (2003). Un istoric român ancorat în lumea contemporanâ (in Romanian). ISBN 978-973-668-014-4.
13. Niessen, James P. (2005). "Romania". In Frucht, Richard (ed.). Eastern Europe: an introduction to the people, lands, and culture. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO. p. 750. ISBN 978-1-57607-800-6.
14. Călin Hentea (2007). Brief Romanian Military History. Scarecrow Press. p. 76. ISBN 978-0-8108-5820-6.
15. Kármán, Gábor (2020). Tributaries and Peripheries of the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Empire and its Heritage. Brill. p. 203.
16. Susana Andea (2006). History of Romania: compendium. Romanian Cultural Institute. p. 332. ISBN 978-973-7784-12-4. In the legislative field, he managed to print the Imperial Code of Laws in 1646 (Vasile Lupu's Code, or the Romanian Book of Learning).
17. Robert Bargrave (1 January 1999). The Travel Diary of Robert Bargrave: Levant Merchant (1647-1656). Hakluyt Society. p. 136. ISBN 978-0-904180-63-3.
18. Allen Kent; Harold Lancour; Jay E. Daily (1 February 1979). Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science: Volume 26 - Role Indicators to St. Anselm-College Library (Rome). CRC Press. pp. 65–. ISBN 978-0-8247-2026-1.

Sources

• Runciman, Steven (1985). The Great Church in Captivity: A Study of the Patriarchate of Constantinople from the Eve of the Turkish Conquest to the Greek War of Independence. Cambridge University Press. pp. 286–7, 341–3, 370. ISBN 978-0-521-31310-0.
• George Ioan Brătianu (1995). Sfatul domnesc și adunarea stărilor în principatele române. Editura Enciclopedică. ISBN 978-973-45-0096-3.
• N.Jorga "Byzance apres Byzance, pp. 163–181

Preceded by Moise Movilă	Prince/Voivode of Moldavia April 1634–April 1653	Succeeded by Gheorghe Ștefan
Preceded by Gheorghe Ștefan	Prince/Voivode of Moldavia May–June 1653	Succeeded by Gheorghe Ștefan