Cantemir Antiochus

The study, dedicated to the book Descriptio Moldaviae – written by the Moldavian prince Demetrius Cantemir (1710–1711), known mostly as an encyclopaedic scholar and a man of letters from the early eighteenth century – is structured in two parts. In the first part, the author concludes that Descriptio Moldaviae is a work of research and a book of memories at the same time. The information – very rich, but also very uneven in terms of value or precision – was gathered in the four periods in which Cantemir lived in Moldavia (1674–1688/1689/1690, 1691–1693, 1699–1700 and 1710–1711). The scientific data were gathered
during the years of maturity, but the memories have settled since the childhood. Thus, leaving aside the parties relating to the older periods, it can be said that Moldavia from Descriptio is, generally speaking, the one from the last quarter of the seventeenth century and the first decade of the eighteenth century. Demetrius Cantemir conceived Descriptio during his exile in Russia. All this time, he hoped he would return to his father’s throne and he would bequeath it to his descendants. But the children – four of which were boys – were born in Iaşi and in Istanbul and they were too young when their parents went into exile (1711) for starting to know Moldavia. The author assumes, in the second part of this study, that Descriptio was created by Demetrius Cantemir for his own children, as a government manual and as a work which depicted the image of theirs unknown and far country. This hypothesis could explain why Demetrius and then his son, Antiochus, they kept this book on them and why they did not sent it to the Berlin Academy, despite the insistence and pressures of all kinds which were made from that direction.

Referring to official and private correspondence, memoirs, and police reports, this study compares the cultural references and social practices of Prince Antioch Dmitrievich Cantemir and Johann Hartwig Ernst von Bernstorff, two diplomats serving in Paris consecutively between 1738 and 1750. The Russian and Danish ambassadors had a shared interest in literature and the sciences. They both communicated with Montesquieu and Voltaire, the most notable philosophers and writers of their time. However, their relations with these men of letters and their participation in the social life of the French capital were fundamentally different. Police reports demonstrate that the Russian ambassador was content with quite modest company, which mostly included foreign diplomats, French scientists, and writers. Outside this circle, he only contacted “useful” people to get information. Police reports do not mention Cantemir’s meetings with Montesquieu at all, although they had very much in common. In contrast, Bernstorff shone in Parisian beau monde, had numerous acquaintances in various spheres, and received both Voltaire and Montesquieu at his home. However, their contact with him remained limited. The patriarch of Ferney seldom visited the Danish diplomat and only wrote to him about practical matters. Montesquieu showed courtesy to Bernstorff but did not share his literary plans with him. The Parisian beau monde commented ironically upon the Danish diplomat’s manners. Consequently, both Cantemir and Bernstorff, with the former preferring philosophical solitude to fashionable entertainment and the latter willing to become famous in the Republic of Belles-lettres by means of contacts with Voltaire and Montesquieu, failed to establish themselves in the social life of Paris. In the eyes of the beau monde, they remained enlightened barbarians, incarnate characters of the Persian Letters.