Ioan Bianu
| Ioan Bianu | |
|---|---|
Photograph of Bianu, ca. 1920
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| Born | 1856 or 1857 Făget (Oláhbükkös), Transylvania, Austrian Empire |
| Died | February 13, 1935 (aged 78–79) Bucharest, Kingdom of Romania |
| Residence | Eastern Europe |
| Other names | Ion Bianu, Ion Frunză |
| Academic background | |
| Influences | Timotei Cipariu, Émile Legrand, Ioan Micu Moldovan, Émile Picot |
| Academic work | |
| Era | 19th and 20th centuries |
| Main interests | |
| Influenced | Alexandru Rosetti, Radu R. Rosetti |
Ioan Bianu (1856 or 1857 – February 13, 1935) was an Imperial Austrian-born Romanian philologist and bibliographer. The son of a peasant family from Transylvania, he completed high school in Blaj, where he became a disciple of Timotei Cipariu and Ioan Micu Moldovan. As a youth, he espoused Romanian nationalism, and came into conflict with the Austro-Hungarian authorities, before finally emigrating to the Romanian Old Kingdom in 1876. There, he attended the University of Bucharest, later joining the faculty, where he taught Romanian literary history. He was affiliated with the Romanian Academy Library for over half a century, transforming the institution from the meager state in which he found it, and overseeing a five-fold increase of its collection. He helped author two important multi-volume works detailing early books and manuscripts from his country, and was a founder of library and information science in his adoptive country. Near the end of his life, struggling with deafness, Bianu withdrew from the Library in favor of his friend Radu R. Rosetti, but went on to serve as president of the Romanian Academy.
Bianu's scholarship was doubled by his work as an organizer in the field, and, especially after 1880, by a participation in political intrigues. He was a disciple of Dimitrie Sturdza, joining the latter's National Liberal Party and canvassing support in academia. Bianu continued to agitate among the Transylvanian Romanians, but, by 1896, both he and Sturdza had turned moderate on the national issue, and favored a rapprochement with Austria-Hungary. As such, Bianu was a "Germanophile" during World War I, meaning that he criticized Romania's alliance with the Entente Powers. He remained in German-occupied territory following the fall of Bucharest, but was spared persecution upon the end of war.
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