George Panu

George Panu (March 9, 1848 – November 6, 1910) was a Moldavian, later Romanian memoirist, literary critic, journalist and politician. A native of Iași, educated there as well as in Paris and Brussels, he worked as a schoolteacher and lawyer, but made a name for himself in politics and journalism. His outlook was a radical one that shared common goals with the socialist movement. Noted for his bitter polemics, he served several terms in parliament, alternating between the main parties as well as heading his own small faction for nearly a decade. In the last years of his life, Panu wrote a valuable memoir detailing his experiences in the Junimea literary society, of which he had become an implacable adversary.

Born in Iași, his parents were the army officer Vasile Panu and his wife Ana (née Gugora), who was of Bulgarian origin. Vasile, whose family originated in Vaslui and was reportedly called Brânză, attended a cadets' school in Odessa and rose to the rank of major. He married Ana in Galați; the couple had four sons and two daughters. George attended primary school at Trei Ierarhi Monastery, followed by the National College. His teachers included Petru Poni, Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu and Titu Maiorescu, while he was classmates with Alexandru Lambrior and Vasile Conta. He was passionate about history and read well beyond what was expected, and was a devoted admirer of Simion Bărnuțiu, whose ascetic figure he saw several times while the latter was teaching in Iași. From the early days of Junimea literary society, in 1864, he began hearing its lectures. When Alexandru Ioan Cuza was overthrown in 1866, he and other pupils backed the idea of a native prince to reign over the country, rather than the foreign-born one Junimea backed, and eventually personified by Carol I. He subsequently studied at the Literature faculty of Iași University from 1868 to 1870. His professors included Maiorescu, Iacob Negruzzi, Nicolae Ionescu and Gheorghe Mârzescu, and he read widely. Panu's classmates included Lambrior and Calistrat Hogaș, who had also gone to high school with him.

...
Wikipedia