Excerpts : Princess Marthe Bibesco Ana Blandiana Smaranda Braescu Madelene “Madi” Cancicov Nina Cassian Elena Ceausescu Ioana Celibidache Queen Elisabeth of Romania Princess Gregoire Ghica Princess Ileana of Romania Dora D’Istria Monica Lovinescu Ileana Malancioiu Queen Marie of Romania Dr. Agnes Kelly Murgoci Mabel Nandris Countess Anna de Noailles Ana Novac Oana Orlea Ana Pauker Marta Petreu Elisabeta Rizea of Nucsoara Sanda Stolojan Leontina Vaduva Anca Visdei Sabina Wurmbrand   Dora D'Istria Princess Alexander Koltov Massalsky, née Princess Elena Ghica (b. 3 February 1828, Bucharest – d. Florence, 17th November 1888) Writer, Feminist, Enthographer, Historian, Composer, Alpinist, Fighter for Albanian Emancipation Belonging: “As the fate caused me since my early childhood to be faraway from the banks of my beloved Dambovitsa river, I have not stopped for a single moment to belong to my native country, whose destiny is the object of my constant meditation” Biography: Elena Ghica was the niece of Prince Grigore IV Ghica, the first native ruler of Wallachia, (1822 – 1829), following a century of Phanariote rule. She was the niece of another Prince Alexandru Ghica (ruler of Wallachia 1834 – 1842) and a great niece of prince Grigore III Ghica, who was beheaded in 1777 by the Ottomans for opposing the rapt of Bukovina. Elena’s father was a distinguished archaeologist, numismatist and a founder of the first national museum collection in Romania. Elena’s mother, who was reputed of being of a singular beauty and as such much admired by general Count Kisseleff, the Tzar’s Constitutional Governor of the Romanian Principalities,. She was an erudite woman, a writer and translator of classical French works. Elena spoke nine foreign languages by the age of fourteen and on her first European tour with her parents, in 1842 amazed the Court of William IV of Prussia at “Sans Souci”, by translating into German a classic greek inscription, from an archaeological artefact brought to the palace by Humboldt. Little wonder, as by the age of 14 the young prodigal Elena Ghica had already rendered Homer’s “Illiad” into German verse. She marries a Russian prince Alexander Koltov Massalsky and follows her husband to the Court of Nicholas I at St Petersburg. But here, her independent spirit and admiration of the British and French culture at the time of the Crimean war, fall foul of the Tzar’s absolutist strictures, as a result of which Princess Massalsky is physically admonished, with lashes on the bare bottom. Follows the inevitable exile, not to Siberia, but to Switzerland, which marks the beginning of a prodigal literary career under the pseudonym of Dora D’Istria. But writing alone does not seem to satisfy the intrepid feminst who becomes the first Romanian woman in to climb mount Moench in the Swiss Alps, on the peak of which she raises the Romanian flag, This early adventure is confined to a new book published in 1856. But stirring political controversy is even closer to her heart as Dora d’Istria writes a monograph on the Ionian Islands, urging the British to return them to the Venetian Republic… In 1867 Dora d’Istria becomes an Honorary Citizen of Athens, a title which was not bestowed only once to Lord Byron who died at Missolonghi in 1824. Succes causes the Russian ambassador to Athens to remember that, after all, Dora d’istria was also a Russian Princess (…) and as such he introduces her to Queen Amalia of Greece. Thereafter Dora d’Istria travels the world, including to North and South America and eventually settles in her beloved Italy where Garibaldi salutes her as a “Hero-sister, a soul aiming at the highest ideals”. From now on she is lionised and the piazza adjoining her Florentine villa is named after her (an area which was destroyed by allied air raids on Florence, in 1943. Thankfully her paintings, correspondence and library survived as she had given them in her will to the City of Florence). Dora d’Istria wrote her books in French, German, Italian, Romanian and Greek and she was considered one of the greatest women authors of the 19th century. Her charm was one which bewitched the European high society and understandably her cultural heritage is claimed by several countries (Romania, Italy, Switzerland, Greece, Albania). Bibliography: D’Istria, Dora:, “La vie monastique dans l'église orientale” , Paris & Geneva, 1855. D’Istria, Dora:, La Suisse allemande et l'ascension de Moench” Paris/Geneva, 1856, dedicated “To my Romanian brothers” D’Istria, Dora:, “Excursions en Roumélie et en Morée”, Zürich & Paris , 1863, dedicated to Grigore III Ghica D’Istria, Dora:, “Les femmes en Orient” Zürich, 1860 D’Istria, Dora:, “Des femmes par un femme” D’Istria, Dora:, “Albanians in Romania, The History of the princely Ghica family during the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries” ,Florence, 1872 D’Istria, Dora:, “La poésie des Ottomans” 1877, Bartolomeo Cechetti.: “Dora d'Istria Collected Works, 1876-1877”, translated by Grigore Peretz, Luisa ROSSI (ed.), Dora d’Istria. I bagni di mare. Una principessa europea alla scoperta della Riviera, Sagep, Genova, 1998. >> Back to TOP