page_title: Kogălniceanu family
section_title: Mihail Kogălniceanu and successors
hierarchical_section_title: Kogălniceanu family / Mihail Kogălniceanu and successors
caption_attribution_description: Mihail Kogălniceanu
context_page_description: The Kogălniceanu, Kogălniceanul or Cogâlniceanu family was one of the major political, intellectual and aristocratic families in Moldavia, with branches in modern Romania. Originally Bessarabian peasants, the first Kogălniceanus accumulated wealth and, as owners of the Scrivulenii estate, climbed into the boyar elite. They were also important as skilled members of the Moldavian bureaucracy, and, through brothers Constantin and Enache, also made contributions to 18th-century Romanian literature. Their work was matched and surpassed three generations later by possibly the most famous member of the family, historian and statesman Mihail Kogălniceanu, one of the founders of modern Romania and of Romanian liberalism.
  Some of the 20th-century Kogălniceanus were politically significant, supporting either the Conservative or People's Parties. Among the latter category, Mihail's son Vasile Kogălniceanu is chiefly remembered for his activism in support of land reform. A generation later, the Kogălniceanu male line had almost died out, but, through the female descendants, the family had become related to other important political clans: the Sturdzas, the Ghicas etc.
context_section_description: Mihail Kogălniceanu (1817–1891), the son of Ilie and Catinca, was a leading figure in 19th-century politics, credited as one of the founders of modern Romania and of its modern liberal movement. Educated abroad, with a wide range of intellectual contributions (historiography, education, political journalism, works for the stage etc.), he openly demanded modernization and the unification of all Romanians within and without Moldavia. In youth, Kogălniceanu was doctrinaire of the 1848 Moldavian Revolution, an abortive rising against the conservative establishment of Prince Sturdza, and became a fugitive; he returned later as aide to the liberal Prince Grigore Alexandru Ghica, and engineered some of the major reforms of the 1850s, including the abolition of slavery (1855). In 1859, as an activist of the National Party, he helped bring about the Moldo-Wallachian union of 1859, and thereafter served Domnitor Alexander John Cuza as government minister. He was one of the statesmen directly involved in drafting and imposing the land reforms of the 1860s, then, as Prime Minister of Romania, helped proclaim Romanian independence (1877). He is also remembered for leading the moderate, liberal conservative, wing of the National Liberal Party, which he helped establish in 1875.
  Mihail Kogălniceanu was married Ecaterina Jora (1827–1907), widow of Colonel Iorgu Scorţescu, and had at least eight children from her. The statesman's favorite was daughter Lucia (or Lucie). She had four children from her marriage to A. Vârnav-Liteanu, and two more from her second husband, Gheorghe Beldiman. Her final marriage, to Romanian dandy and Conservative Party man Leon Bogdan, produced two daughters. During and after this last marriage, she was involved in rallying support for the Conservatives and, later, the People's Party, as one of the few women of that time to openly engage in political battles; she was also a noted philanthropist. Of her progeny, daughter Lucia Vârnav-Liteanu married administrator Constantin Crupenschi. Through her son Alexandru Crupenschi's marriage with heiress Magdalena Sturdza, the Kogălniceanu descendants were intermarried with the Sturdza clan. Of Lucia Kogălniceanu's other daughters, Ana married an "Earl of Rome" (Count Russell-Killough), and Manuela a Ghica landowner.
  A Conservative Party politico and notoriously rich captain of industry, Mihail's nephew Grigore Kogălniceanu (d. 1904) married Adela Cantacuzino-Paşcanu of the Cantacuzino aristocrats. She survived him by 16 years, playing the eccentric host to Iaşi's high society, before falling victim to an unsolved burglary-homicide in 1920.
  Mihail and Ecaterina Kogălniceanu had three sons. The oldest, Constantin, was a historian and diplomat. The youngest was Vasile Kogălniceanu (1863–1942). He was an expert in agronomy, an advocate of agrarian politics, and a proponent of universal suffrage, who was jailed by the authorities as instigator of the 1907 Peasants' Revolt. Elected to Parliament with People's Party support, he played a major part in the adoption of a new and extended land reform law.
  Mihail Kogălniceanu's second son, Ion (1859–1892), was the only one to leave heirs. His wife Adela, a Sturdza boyaress, gave him two children: daughter Jeanne and son Mihail. The latter is remembered for setting up, in 1935, a cultural association dedicated to the preservation of his grandfather's cultural achievements (Mihail Kogălniceanu Foundation). The venture involved other members of the family (uncles Vasile and Constantin), with noted support from literary and political figures: Nicolae Iorga, Mihail Sadoveanu, Gheorghe Tătărescu, Nicolae Titulescu, Gheorghe I. Brătianu, Ion Inculeţ etc.
  Mihail and his first wife Ana Leonida, a member of the aristocratic Yarka family, had a son, Ionel Kogălniceanu. From his second wife, Irina (Nineta) Duca, Mihail had Ilie Kogălniceanu, who, in 2001, was the only bearer of the Kogălniceanu surname. Both he and his mother were close to famed Romanian composer George Enescu and to Enescu's aristocratic muse Maruca Cantacuzino, both of whom 
caption: Mihail Kogălniceanu's portrait, in old age
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