- Gheorghe Lazăr
Gheorghe Lazăr (
June 5 1779 —September 17 1821 , born and died inAvrig ,Sibiu County ) was aTransylvania n-bornRomania n scholar, the founder of the firstRomanian language school - inBucharest , 1818.Biography
A
Habsburg Empire subject, Lazăr was born in a family of peasants. He studied inSibiu , Cluj, andVienna , training intheology , but also interested in history and philosophy. The strong admiration he had forNapoleon I , as well as other radical opinions he expressed, prevented him from becoming a priest. He later had to flee forWallachia , where he worked as a tutor and engineer, drawing admiration fromboyar Constantin Bălăceanu , who was charged with the administration of schools throughout the Principality.His school signified the break with a tradition of schooling in Greek (prevalent under
Phanariote rule), and also marked a step towardssecularism in education. Lazăr was one of the first wave of Romanian Transylvanian teachers to shape schooling in both Wallachia andMoldavia throughout the 19th century.In 1821 he became gravely ill, and returned to his home village where he died.
Legacy
Today a great number of Romanian highschools are named in his honour. The most prestigious are:
* The "Gheorghe Lazăr" National College in Bucharest - formed after reorganisation of his first school.
* The "Gheorghe Lazăr" National College in Sibiu - a school Gheorghe Lazăr himself attended in 1801-1802.A commune (Gheorghe Lazăr) in
Ialomiţa County was named after him.A statue of him was erected in Bucharest's University Square, standing in front of the
University of Bucharest . The one erected during the communist regime in Sibiu's main square, controversial because of its Socialist Realist style, was removed and is due to be replaced with a more conventional portrait.References
*ro icon [http://biserica.org/WhosWho/DTR/L/GheorgheLazar.html Dictionary of Romanian Theologians]
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