Alexandru Papiu Ilarian

Who was Alexandru Papiu Ilarian?

Alexandru Papiu-Ilarian was a Romanian revolutionary, lawyer and historian.

Papiu Ilarian was born in Bezded, Kingdom of Hungary on 27 September 1827. His father was the Greek-catholic priest Ioan Bucur Pop, also a Romanian revolutionary, who was executed at Turda by hanging, at 54 years old, by the Hungarian authorities in March 1849. In 1832 he moved with his family to Budiu de Câmpie, near Târgu Mureş, the native village of his father. where he attends the primary school. In the autumn of 1838 he enters the Catholic secondary school in Târgu Mureş. He finished high school in Cluj. He was active in the Hungarian Revolution of 1848.

He was a founder and president of the Transylvania Society, between 1867 and 1874. He was elected to the Romanian Academy in 1868. As member of the Bar in Bucharest, he pleaded in court the case of the oxcart drivers from Giurgiu, in 1873. He died in Sibiu on 23 October 1877.