CONSTANTINE

See also:

• CANTEMIR

CANTEMIR  became a prince of Moldavia, 1685-1693 . He was a good and conscientious ruler, who protected the people from the rapacity of the tax-gatherers and introduced peace into his country . He was succeeded on the throne by his son Antioch, who ruled twice, 1696-1700 and 1705-1707 . His youngest brother, DEMETRIUS Or DEMETER CANTEMIR (b . October 26, 1673), was made prince of Moldavia in 171o; he ruled only one year, 1710-1711, when he joined Peter the Great in his campaign against the Turks and placed Moldavia under Russian suzerainty . Beaten by the Turks, Cantemir emigrated to Russia, where he and his family finally settled . He died at Kharkov in 1723 . He was known as one of the greatest linguists of his time, speaking and writing eleven languages, and being well versed in Oriental scholarship . He was a voluminous and original writer of great sagacity and deep penetration, and his writings range over many subjects . The best known is his History of the Growth and Decay of the Ottoman Empire . He also wrote a history of oriental music, which is no longer extant; the first critical history of Moldo-Walachia; the first geographical, ethnographical and economic description of Moldavia, Descriptio Moldaviae, under the name of Historia Hieroglyphica, to which he furnished a key, and in which the principal persons are represented by animals; also the history of the two ruling houses of Brancovan and Cantacuzino; and a philosophical treatise on the old theme of the disputation between soul and body, written in Greek and Rumanian under the title Divanul Lumii . The latter's son, ANTIOCH CANTEMIR (born in Moldavia, 1700; died in Paris, 1744), became in 1731 Russian minister in Great Britain, and in 1736 minister plenipotentiary in Paris .

He brought to

London the Latin MS. from whence the English translation of his father's history of the Turkish empire was made by N . Tindal, London, 1756, to which he added an exhaustive biography and bibliography of the author (pp . 455-460) . He was a Russian poet and almost the first author of satires in modern Russian literature .