The Most Famous
POLITICIANS from Romania
This page contains a list of the greatest Romanian Politicians. The pantheon dataset contains 19,576 Politicians, 153 of which were born in Romania. This makes Romania the birth place of the 21st most number of Politicians behind Sweden, and Denmark.
Top 10
The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the top 10 most legendary Romanian Politicians of all time. This list of famous Romanian Politicians is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity. Visit the rankings page to view the entire list of Romanian Politicians.
1. Nicolae Ceaușescu (1918 - 1989)
With an HPI of 82.42, Nicolae Ceaușescu is the most famous Romanian Politician. His biography has been translated into 95 different languages on wikipedia.
Nicolae Ceaușescu ( chow-SHESK-oo, Romanian: [nikoˈla.e tʃe̯a.uˈʃesku] , 26 January [O.S. 13 January] 1918 – 25 December 1989) was a Romanian communist politician who served as the general secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 to 1989. He was the second and last communist leader of Romania. He was also the country's head of state from 1967 to 1989, and widely classified as a dictator, serving as President of the State Council and from 1974 concurrently as President of the Republic, until his overthrow and execution in the Romanian Revolution in December 1989, part of a series of anti-communist uprisings in Eastern Europe that year. Born in 1918 in Scornicești, Ceaușescu was a member of the Romanian Communist youth movement. He was arrested in 1939 and sentenced for "conspiracy against social order", spending the time during the war in prisons and internment camps: Jilava (1940), Caransebeș (1942), Văcărești (1943), and Târgu Jiu (1943). Ceaușescu rose up through the ranks of Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej's Socialist government and, upon Gheorghiu-Dej's death in 1965, he succeeded to the leadership of the Romanian Communist Party as general secretary. Upon achieving power, Ceaușescu eased press censorship and condemned the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in his speech of 21 August 1968, which resulted in a surge in popularity. However, this period of stability was brief, as his government soon became totalitarian and came to be considered the most repressive in the Eastern Bloc. His secret police, the Securitate, was responsible for mass surveillance as well as severe repression and human rights abuses within the country, and controlled the media and press. Ceaușescu's attempts to implement policies that would lead to a significant growth of the population led to a growing number of illegal abortions and increased the number of orphans in state institutions. Economic mismanagement due to failed oil ventures during the 1970s led to very significant foreign debts for Romania. In 1982, Ceaușescu directed the government to export much of the country's agricultural and industrial production in an effort to repay these debts. His cult of personality experienced unprecedented elevation, followed by the deterioration of foreign relations, even with the Soviet Union. As anti-government protesters demonstrated in Timișoara in December 1989, Ceaușescu perceived the demonstrations as a political threat and ordered military forces to open fire on 17 December, causing many deaths and injuries. The revelation that Ceaușescu was responsible resulted in a massive spread of rioting and civil unrest across the country. The demonstrations, which reached Bucharest, became known as the Romanian Revolution—the only violent overthrow of a communist government in the course of the Revolutions of 1989. Ceaușescu and his wife Elena fled the capital in a helicopter, but they were captured by the military after the armed forces defected. After being tried and convicted of economic sabotage and genocide, both were sentenced to death, and they were immediately executed by firing squad on 25 December.
2. Michael I of Romania (1921 - 2017)
With an HPI of 74.61, Michael I of Romania is the 2nd most famous Romanian Politician. His biography has been translated into 56 different languages.
Michael I (Romanian: Mihai I [miˈhaj]; 25 October 1921 – 5 December 2017) was the last king of Romania, reigning from 20 July 1927 to 8 June 1930 and again from 6 September 1940 until his forced abdication on 30 December 1947. Shortly after Michael's birth, his father, Crown Prince Carol, had become involved in a controversial relationship with Magda Lupescu. In 1925, Carol was pressured to renounce his rights (in favour of his son Michael) to the throne and moved to Paris in exile with Lupescu. In July 1927, following the death of his grandfather Ferdinand I, Michael ascended the throne at age five, the youngest crowned head in Europe. As Michael was still a minor, a regency council was instituted, composed of his uncle Prince Nicolas, Patriarch Miron Cristea and Chief Justice Gheorghe Buzdugan. The council proved to be ineffective and, in 1930, Carol returned to Romania and replaced his son as monarch, reigning as Carol II. As a result, Michael returned to being heir apparent to the throne and was given the additional title of Grand Voievod of Alba-Iulia. Carol II was forced to abdicate in 1940, and Michael once again became king. Under the government led by the military dictator Ion Antonescu, Romania became aligned with Nazi Germany. In 1944, Michael participated in a coup against Antonescu, appointed Constantin Sănătescu as his replacement, and subsequently declared an alliance with the Allies. In March 1945, political pressures forced Michael to appoint a pro-Soviet government headed by Petru Groza. From August 1945 to January 1946, Michael went on a "royal strike" and unsuccessfully tried to oppose Groza's communist-controlled government by refusing to sign and endorse its decrees. In November 1947, Michael attended the wedding of his cousins, the future Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom and Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark in London. Shortly thereafter, on the morning of 30 December 1947, Groza met with Michael and compelled him to abdicate, while the monarchy was abolished. Michael was forced into exile, his properties confiscated, and his citizenship stripped. In 1948, he married Princess Anne of Bourbon-Parma, with whom he had five daughters. The couple eventually settled in Switzerland. Nicolae Ceaușescu's communist dictatorship was overthrown in December 1989 and the following year Michael attempted to return to Romania, only to be arrested and forced to leave upon arrival. In 1992, Michael was allowed to visit Romania for Easter, where he was greeted by huge crowds; a speech he gave from his hotel window drew an estimated one million people to Bucharest. Alarmed by Michael's popularity, the post-communist government of Ion Iliescu refused to allow him any further visits. In 1997, after Iliescu's defeat by Emil Constantinescu in the presidential election of the previous year, Michael's citizenship was restored and he was allowed to visit Romania again. Several confiscated properties, such as Peleș Castle and Săvârșin Castle, were eventually returned to his family.
3. Alaric I (376 - 410)
With an HPI of 73.88, Alaric I is the 3rd most famous Romanian Politician. His biography has been translated into 74 different languages.
Alaric I (; Gothic: 𐌰𐌻𐌰𐍂𐌴𐌹𐌺𐍃, Alarīks, "ruler of all"; c. 370 – 411 AD) was the first king of the Visigoths, from 395 to 410. He rose to leadership of the Goths who came to occupy Moesia—territory acquired a couple of decades earlier by a combined force of Goths and Alans after the Battle of Adrianople. Alaric began his career under the Gothic soldier Gainas and later joined the Roman army. Once an ally of Rome under the Roman emperor Theodosius, Alaric helped defeat the Franks and other allies of a would-be Roman usurper. Despite losing many thousands of his men, he received little recognition from Rome and left the Roman army disappointed. After the death of Theodosius and the disintegration of the Roman armies in 395, he is described as king of the Visigoths. As the leader of the only effective field force remaining in the Balkans, he sought Roman legitimacy, never quite achieving a position acceptable to himself or to the Roman authorities. He operated mainly against the successive Western Roman regimes, and marched into Italy, where he died. He is responsible for the sack of Rome in 410; one of several notable events in the Western Roman Empire's eventual decline. According to Jordanes, a 6th-century Roman bureaucrat of Gothic origin—who later turned his hand to history—Alaric was born on Peuce Island at the mouth of the Danube Delta in present-day Romania and belonged to the noble Balti dynasty of the Thervingian Goths. There is no way to verify this claim. Historian Douglas Boin does not make such an unequivocal assessment about Alaric's Gothic heritage and instead claims he came from either the Thervingi or the Greuthung tribes. When the Goths suffered setbacks against the Huns, they made a mass migration across the Danube, and fought a war with Rome. Alaric was probably a child during this period who grew up along Rome's periphery. Alaric's upbringing was shaped by living along the border of Roman territory in a region that the Romans viewed as a veritable "backwater"; some four centuries before, the Roman poet Ovid regarded the area along the Danube and Black Sea where Alaric was reared as a land of "barbarians", among "the most remote in the vast world." Alaric's childhood in the Balkans, where the Goths had settled by way of an agreement with Theodosius, was spent in the company of veterans who had fought at the Battle of Adrianople in 378, during which they had annihilated much of the Eastern army and killed Emperor Valens. Imperial campaigns against the Visigoths were conducted until a treaty was reached in 382. This treaty was the first foedus on imperial Roman soil and required these semi-autonomous Germanic tribes—among whom Alaric was raised—to supply troops for the Roman army in exchange for peace, control of cultivatable land, and freedom from Roman direct administrative control. Correspondingly, there was hardly a region along the Roman frontier during Alaric's day without Gothic slaves and servants of one form or another. For several subsequent decades, many Goths like Alaric were "called up into regular units of the eastern field army" while others served as auxiliaries in campaigns led by Theodosius against the western usurpers Magnus Maximus and Eugenius. A new phase in the relationship between the Goths and the empire resulted from the treaty signed in 382, as more and more Goths attained aristocratic rank from their service in the imperial army. Alaric began his military career under the Gothic soldier Gainas, and later joined the Roman army. He first appeared as leader of a mixed band of Goths and allied peoples, who invaded Thrace in 391 but were stopped by the half-Vandal Roman General Stilicho. While the Roman poet Claudian belittled Alaric as "a little-known menace" terrorizing southern Thrace during this time, Alaric's abilities and forces were formidable enough to prevent the Roman emperor Theodosius from crossing the Hebrus River. By 392, Alaric had entered Roman military service, which coincided with a reduction of hostilities between Goths and Romans. In 394, he led a Gothic force that helped Emperor Theodosius defeat the Frankish usurper Arbogast—fighting at the behest of Eugenius—at the Battle of Frigidus. Despite sacrificing around 10,000 of his men, who had been victims of Theodosius' callous tactical decision to overwhelm the enemies' front lines using Gothic foederati, Alaric received little recognition from the emperor. Alaric was among the few who survived the protracted and bloody affair. Many Romans considered it their "gain" and a victory that so many Goths had died during the Battle of Frigidus River. Alaric biographer Douglas Boin (2020) posited that seeing ten thousand of his (Alaric's) dead kinsmen likely elicited questions about what kind of ruler Theodosius actually had been and whether remaining in direct Roman service was best for men like him. Refused the reward he expected, which included a promotion to the position of magister militum and command of regular Roman units, Alaric mutinied and began to march against Constantinople. On 17 January 395, Theodosius died of an illness, leaving his two young and incapable sons Arcadius and Honorius in Stilicho's guardianship. Modern writers regard Alaric as king of the Visigoths from 395. According to historian Peter Heather, it is not entirely clear in the sources if Alaric rose to prominence at the time the Goths revolted following Theodosius's death, or if he had already risen within his tribe as early as the war against Eugenius. Whatever the circumstances, Jordanes recorded that the new king persuaded his people to "seek a kingdom by their own exertions rather than serve others in idleness." Whether or not Alaric was a member of an ancient Germanic royal clan—as claimed by Jordanes and debated by historians—is less important than his emergence as a leader, the first of his kind since Fritigern. Theodosius's death left the Roman field armies collapsing and the Empire divided again between his two sons, one taking the eastern and the other the western portion of the Empire. Stilicho made himself master of the West and attempted to establish control in the East as well, and led an army into Greece. Alaric rebelled again. Historian Roger Collins points out that while the rivalries created by the two halves of the Empire vying for power worked to Alaric's advantage and that of his people, simply being called to authority by the Gothic people did not solve the practicalities of their needs for survival. He needed Roman authority in order to be supplied by Roman cities. Alaric took his Gothic army on what Stilicho's propagandist Claudian described as a "pillaging campaign" that began first in the East. Historian Thomas Burns's interpretation is that Alaric and his men were recruited by Rufinus's Eastern regime in Constantinople, and sent to Thessaly to stave off Stilicho's threat. No battle took place. Alaric's forces made their way down to Athens and along the coast, where he sought to force a new peace upon the Romans. In 396, he marched through Thermopylae and sacked Athens, where archaeological evidence shows widespread damage to the city. Stilicho's propagandist Claudian accuses his troops of plundering for the next year or so as far south as the mountainous Peloponnese peninsula, and reports that only Stilicho's surprise attack with his western field army (having sailed from Italy) stemmed the plundering as he pushed Alaric's forces north into Epirus. Zosimus adds that Stilicho's troops destroyed and pillaged too, and let Alaric's men escape with their plunder. Stilicho was forced to send some of his Eastern forces home. They went to Constantinople under the command of one Gainas, a Goth with a large Gothic following. On arrival, Gainas murdered Rufinus, and was appointed magister militum for Thrace by Eutropius, the new supreme minister and the only eunuch consul of Rome, who, Zosimus claims, controlled Arcadius "as if he were a sheep". A poem by Synesius advises Arcadius to display manliness and remove a "skin-clad savage" (probably referring to Alaric) from the councils of power and his barbarians from the Roman army. We do not know if Arcadius ever became aware of this advice, but it had no recorded effect. Stilicho obtained a few more troops from the German frontier and continued to campaign indecisively against the Eastern empire; again he was opposed by Alaric and his men. During the next year, 397, Eutropius personally led his troops to victory over some Huns who were marauding in Asia Minor. With his position thus strengthened he declared Stilicho a public enemy, and he established Alaric as magister militum per Illyricum Alaric thus acquired entitlement to gold and grain for his followers and negotiations were underway for a more permanent settlement. Stilicho's supporters in Milan were outraged at this seeming betrayal; meanwhile, Eutropius was celebrated in 398 by a parade through Constantinople for having achieved victory over the "wolves of the North". Alaric's people were relatively quiet for the next couple of years. In 399, Eutropius fell from power. The new Eastern regime now felt that they could dispense with Alaric's services and they nominally transferred Alaric's province to the West. This administrative change removed Alaric's Roman rank and his entitlement to legal provisioning for his men, leaving his army—the only significant force in the ravaged Balkans—as a problem for Stilicho. According to historian Michael Kulikowski, sometime in the spring of 402 Alaric decided to invade Italy, but no sources from antiquity indicate to what purpose. Burns suggests that Alaric was probably desperate for provisions. Using Claudian as his source, historian Guy Halsall reports that Alaric's attack actually began in late 401, but since Stilicho was in Raetia "dealing with frontier issues" the two did not first confront one another in Italy until 402. Alaric's entry into Italy followed the route identified in the poetry of Claudian, as he crossed the peninsula's Alpine frontier near the city of Aquileia. For a period of six to nine months, there were reports of Gothic attacks along the northern Italian roads, where Alaric was spotted by Roman townspeople. Along the route on Via Postumia, Alaric first encountered Stilicho. Two battles were fought. The first was at Pollentia on Easter Sunday, where Stilicho (according to Claudian) achieved an impressive victory, taking Alaric's wife and children prisoner, and more significantly, seizing much of the treasure that Alaric had amassed over the previous five years' worth of plundering. Pursuing the retreating forces of Alaric, Stilicho offered to return the prisoners but was refused. The second battle was at Verona, where Alaric was defeated for a second time. Stilicho once again offered Alaric a truce and allowed him to withdraw from Italy. Kulikowski explains this confusing, if not outright conciliatory behavior by stating, "given Stilicho's cold war with Constantinople, it would have been foolish to destroy as biddable and violent a potential weapon as Alaric might well prove to be". Halsall's observations are similar, as he contends that the Roman general's "decision to permit Alaric's withdrawal into Pannonia makes sense if we see Alaric's force entering Stilicho's service, and Stilicho's victory being less total than Claudian would have us believe". Perhaps more revealing is a report from the Greek historian Zosimus—writing a half a century later—that indicates an agreement was concluded between Stilicho and Alaric in 405, which suggests Alaric being in "western service at that point", likely stemming from arrangements made back in 402. Between 404 and 405, Alaric remained in one of the four Pannonian provinces, from where he could "play East off against West while potentially threatening both". Historian A.D. Lee observes, "Alaric's return to the north-west Balkans brought only temporary respite to Italy, for in 405 another substantial body of Goths and other barbarians, this time from outside the empire, crossed the middle Danube and advanced into northern Italy, where they plundered the countryside and besieged cities and towns" under their leader Radagaisus. Although the imperial government was struggling to muster enough troops to contain these barbarian invasions, Stilicho managed to stifle the threat posed by the tribes under Radagaisus, when the latter split his forces into three separate groups. Stilicho cornered Radagaisus near Florence and starved the invaders into submission. Meanwhile, Alaric—bestowed with codicils of magister militum by Stilicho and now supplied by the West—awaited for one side or the other to incite him to action as Stilicho faced further difficulties from more barbarians. Sometime in 406 and into 407, more large groups of barbarians, consisting primarily of Vandals, Sueves and Alans, crossed the Rhine into Gaul while about the same time a rebellion occurred in Britain. Under a common soldier named Constantine it spread to Gaul. Burdened by so many enemies, Stilicho's position was strained. During this crisis in 407, Alaric again marched on Italy, taking a position in Noricum (modern Austria), where he demanded a sum of 4,000 pounds of gold to buy off another full-scale invasion. The Roman Senate loathed the idea of supporting Alaric; Zosimus observed that one senator famously declaimed Non est ista pax, sed pactio servitutis ("This is not peace, but a pact of servitude"). Stilicho paid Alaric the 4,000 pounds of gold nevertheless. This agreement, sensible in view of the military situation, fatally weakened Stilicho's standing at Honorius's court. Twice Stilicho had allowed Alaric to escape his grasp, and Radagaisus had advanced all the way to the outskirts of Florence. In the East, Arcadius died on 1 May 408 and was replaced by his son Theodosius II; Stilicho seems to have planned to march to Constantinople, and to install there a regime loyal to himself. He may also have intended to give Alaric a senior official position and send him against the rebels in Gaul. Before Stilicho could do so, while he was away at Ticinum at the head of a small detachment, a bloody coup against his supporters took place at Honorius's court. It was led by Honorius's minister, Olympius. Stilicho's small escort of Goths and Huns was commanded by a Goth, Sarus, whose Gothic troops massacred the Hun contingent in their sleep, and then withdrew towards the cities in which their own families were billeted. Stilicho ordered that Sarus's Goths should not be admitted, but, now without an army, he was forced to flee for sanctuary. Agents of Olympius promised Stilicho his life, but instead betrayed and killed him. Alaric was again declared an enemy of the emperor. Olympius's men then massacred the families of the federate troops (as presumed supporters of Stilicho, although they had probably rebelled against him), and the troops defected en masse to Alaric. Many thousands of barbarian auxiliaries, along with their wives and children, joined Alaric in Noricum. The conspirators seem to have let their main army disintegrate and had no policy except hunting down supporters of Stilicho. Italy was left without effective indigenous defence forces thereafter. As a declared 'enemy of the emperor', Alaric was denied the legitimacy that he needed to collect taxes and hold cities without large garrisons, which he could not afford to detach. He again offered to move his men, this time to Pannonia, in exchange for a modest sum of money and the modest title of Comes, but he was refused because Olympius's regime regarded him as a supporter of Stilicho. When Alaric was rebuffed, he led his force of around 30,000 men—many newly enlisted and understandably motivated—on a march toward Rome to avenge their murdered families. He moved across the Julian Alps into Italy, probably using the route and supplies arranged for him by Stilicho, bypassing the imperial court in Ravenna which was protected by widespread marshland and had a port, and in September 408 he menaced the city of Rome, imposing a strict blockade. No blood was shed this time; Alaric relied on hunger as his most powerful weapon. When the ambassadors of the Senate, entreating for peace, tried to intimidate him with hints of what the despairing citizens might accomplish, he laughed and gave his celebrated answer: "The thicker the hay, the easier mowed!" After much bargaining, the famine-stricken citizens agreed to pay a ransom of 5,000 pounds of gold, 30,000 pounds of silver, 4,000 silken tunics, 3,000 hides dyed scarlet, and 3,000 pounds of pepper. Alaric also recruited some 40,000 freed Gothic slaves. Thus ended Alaric's first siege of Rome. After having provisionally agreed to the terms offered by Alaric for lifting the blockade, Honorius recanted; historian A.D. Lee highlights that one of the points of contention for the emperor was Alaric's expectation of being named head of the Roman Army, a post Honorius was not prepared to grant to Alaric. When this title was not bestowed onto Alaric, he proceeded to not only "besiege Rome again in late 409, but also to proclaim a leading senator, Priscus Attalus, as a rival emperor, from whom Alaric then received the appointment" he desired. Meanwhile, Alaric's newly appointed "emperor" Attalus, who seems not to have understood the limits of his power or his dependence on Alaric, failed to take Alaric's advice and lost the grain supply in Africa to a pro-Honorian comes Africae, Heraclian. Then, sometime in 409, Attalus—accompanied by Alaric—marched on Ravenna and after receiving unprecedented terms and concessions from the legitimate emperor Honorius, refused him and instead demanded that Honorius be deposed and exiled. Fearing for his safety, Honorius made preparations to flee to Ravenna when ships carrying 4,000 troops arrived from Constantinople, restoring his resolve. Now that Honorius no longer felt the need to negotiate, Alaric (regretting his choice of puppet emperor) deposed Attalus, perhaps to re-open negotiations with Ravenna. Negotiations with Honorius might have succeeded had it not been for another intervention by Sarus, of the Amal family, and therefore a hereditary enemy of Alaric and his house. He attacked Alaric's men. Why Sarus, who had been in imperial service for years under Stilicho, acted at this moment remains a mystery, but Alaric interpreted this attack as directed by Ravenna and as bad faith from Honorius. No longer would negotiations suffice for Alaric, as his patience had reached its end, which led him to march on Rome for a third and final time. On 24 August 410, Alaric and his forces began the sack of Rome, an assault that lasted three days. After hearing reports that Alaric had entered the city—possibly aided by Gothic slaves inside—there were reports that Emperor Honorius (safe in Ravenna) broke into "wailing and lamentation" but quickly calmed once "it was explained to him that it was the city of Rome that had met its end and not 'Roma'," his pet fowl. Writing from Bethlehem, St. Jerome (Letter 127.12, to the lady Principia) lamented: "A dreadful rumour reached us from the West. We heard that Rome was besieged, that the citizens were buying their safety with gold … The city which had taken the whole world was itself taken; nay, it fell by famine before it fell to the sword." Nonetheless, Christian apologists also cited how Alaric ordered that anyone who took shelter in a Church was to be spared. When liturgical vessels were taken from the basilica of St. Peter and Alaric heard of this, he ordered them returned and had them ceremoniously restored in the church. If the account from the historian Orosius can be seen as accurate, there was even a celebratory recognition of Christian unity by way of a procession through the streets where Romans and barbarians alike "raised a hymn to God in public"; historian Edward James concludes that such stories are likely more political rhetoric of the "noble" barbarians than a reflection of historical reality. According to historian Patrick Geary, Roman booty was not the focus of Alaric's sack of Rome; he came for needed food supplies. Historian Stephen Mitchell asserts that Alaric's followers seemed incapable of feeding themselves and relied on provisions "supplied by the Roman authorities." Whatever Alaric's intentions were cannot be known entirely, but Kulikowski certainly sees the issue of available treasure in a different light, writing that "For three days, Alaric's Goths sacked the city, stripping it of the wealth of centuries." The barbarian invaders were not gentle in their treatment of property as substantial damage was still evident into the sixth century. Certainly the Roman world was shaken by the fall of the Eternal City to barbarian invaders, but as Guy Halsall emphasizes, "Rome's fall had less striking political effects. Alaric, unable to treat with Honorius, remained in the political cold." Kulikowski sees the situation similarly, commenting: But for Alaric the sack of Rome was an admission of defeat, a catastrophic failure. Everything he had hoped for, had fought for over the course of a decade and a half, went up in flames with the capital of the ancient world. Imperial office, a legitimate place for himself and his followers inside the empire, these were now forever out of reach. He might seize what he wanted, as he had seized Rome, but he would never be given it by right. The sack of Rome solved nothing and when the looting was over Alaric's men still had nowhere to live and fewer future prospects than ever before. Still, the importance of Alaric cannot be "overestimated" according to Halsall, since he had desired and obtained a Roman command even though he was a barbarian; his real misfortune was being caught between the rivalry of the Eastern and Western empires and their court intrigue. According to historian Peter Brown, when one compares Alaric with other barbarians, "he was almost an Elder Statesman." Nonetheless, Alaric's respect for Roman institutions as a former servant to its highest office did not stay his hand in violently sacking the city that had for centuries exemplified Roman glory, leaving behind physical destruction and social disruption, while Alaric took clerics and even the emperor's sister, Galla Placidia, with him when he left the city. Many other Italian communities beyond the city of Rome itself fell victim to the forces under Alaric, as Procopius (Wars 3.2.11–13) writing in the sixth century later relates: For they destroyed all the cities which they captured, especially those south of the Ionian Gulf, so completely that nothing has been left to my time to know them by, unless, indeed, it might be one tower or gate or some such thing which chanced to remain. And they killed all the people, as many as came in their way, both old and young alike, sparing neither women nor children. Wherefore even up to the present time Italy is sparsely populated. Whether Alaric's forces wrought the level of destruction described by Procopius or not cannot be known, but evidence speaks to a significant population decrease, as the number of people on the food dole dropped from 800,000 in 408 to 500,000 by 419. Rome's fall to the barbarians was as much a psychological blow to the empire as anything else, since some Romans citizens saw the collapse as resulting from the conversion to Christianity, while Christian apologists like Augustine (writing City of God) responded in turn. Lamenting Rome's capture, famed Christian theologian Jerome, wrote how "day and night" he could not stop thinking of everyone's safety, and moreover, how Alaric had extinguished "the bright light of all the world." Some contemporary Christian observers even saw Alaric—a professed Christian—as God's wrath upon a still pagan Rome. Not only had Rome's sack been a significant blow to the Roman people's morale, they had also endured two years' worth of trauma brought about by fear, hunger (due to blockades), and illness. However, the Goths were not long in the city of Rome, as only three days after the sack, Alaric marched his men south to Campania, from where he intended to sail to Sicily—probably to obtain grain and other supplies—when a storm destroyed his fleet. During the early months of 411, while on his northward return journey through Italy, Alaric took ill and died at Consentia in Bruttium. His cause of death was likely fever, and his body was, according to legend, buried under the riverbed of the Busento in accordance with the pagan practices of the Visigothic people. The stream was temporarily turned aside from its course while the grave was dug, wherein the Gothic chief and some of his most precious spoils were interred. When the work was finished, the river was turned back into its usual channel and the captives by whose hands the labor had been accomplished were put to death that none might learn their secret. Alaric was succeeded in the command of the Gothic army by his brother-in-law, Ataulf, who married Honorius' sister Galla Placidia three years later. Following in the wake of Alaric's leadership, which Kulikowski claims, had given his people "a sense of community that survived his own death...Alaric's Goths remained together inside the empire, going on to settle in Gaul. There, in the province of Aquitaine, they put down roots and created the first autonomous barbarian kingdom inside the frontiers of the Roman empire." The Goths were able to settle in Aquitaine only after Honorius granted the once Roman province to them, sometime in 418 or 419. Not long after Alaric's exploits in Rome and Athaulf's settlement in Aquitaine, there is a "rapid emergence of Germanic barbarian groups in the West" who begin controlling many western provinces. These barbarian peoples included: Vandals in Spain and Africa, Visigoths in Spain and Aquitaine, Burgundians along the upper Rhine and southern Gaul, and Franks on the lower Rhine and in northern and central Gaul. The chief authorities on the career of Alaric are: the historian Orosius and the poet Claudian, both contemporary, neither disinterested; Zosimus, a historian who lived probably about half a century after Alaric's death; and Jordanes, a Goth who wrote the history of his nation in 551, basing his work on Cassiodorus's Gothic History. Alaric II Gaiseric Odoacer This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Hodgkin, Thomas (1911). "Alaric". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 1 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 470–472. Alaric I Edward Gibbon, History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Chapter 30 and Chapter 31. The Legend of Alaric's Burial For a modern-day novel exploring the historical sources relating to Alaric's riverbed grave, see Alaric's Gold by Robert Fortune
4. Stephen Báthory (1533 - 1586)
With an HPI of 73.77, Stephen Báthory is the 4th most famous Romanian Politician. His biography has been translated into 54 different languages.
Stephen Báthory (Hungarian: Báthory István; Polish: Stefan Batory; Lithuanian: ; 27 September 1533 – 12 December 1586) was Voivode of Transylvania (1571–1576), Prince of Transylvania (1576–1586), King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania (1576–1586). The son of Stephen VIII Báthory and a member of the Hungarian Báthory noble family, Báthory was a ruler of Transylvania in the 1570s, defeating another challenger for that title, Gáspár Bekes. In 1576 Báthory became the husband of Queen Anna Jagiellon and the third elected king of Poland. He worked closely with chancellor Jan Zamoyski. The first years of his reign were focused on establishing power, defeating a fellow claimant to the throne, Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor, and quelling rebellions, most notably, the Danzig rebellion. He reigned only a decade, but is considered one of the most successful kings in Polish history, particularly in the military realm. His signal achievement was his victorious campaign in Livonia against Russia in the middle part of his reign, in which he repulsed a Russian invasion of Commonwealth borderlands and secured a highly favorable treaty of peace (the Peace of Jam Zapolski).
5. John Hunyadi (1407 - 1456)
With an HPI of 73.52, John Hunyadi is the 5th most famous Romanian Politician. His biography has been translated into 42 different languages.
John Hunyadi (Hungarian: Hunyadi János; Romanian: Ioan de Hunedoara; Croatian: Janko Hunjadi; Serbian: Сибињанин Јанко, romanized: Sibinjanin Janko; c. 1406 – 11 August 1456) was a leading Hungarian military and political figure during the 15th century, who served as regent of the Kingdom of Hungary from 1446 to 1453, under the minor Ladislaus V. According to most contemporary sources, he was the member of a noble family of Wallachian ancestry. Through his struggles against the Ottoman Empire, he earned for himself the nickname "Turk-buster" from his contemporaries. Due to his merits, he quickly received substantial land grants. By the time of his death, he was the owner of immense land areas, totaling approximately four million cadastral acres, which had no precedent before or after in the Kingdom of Hungary. His enormous wealth and his military and political weight were primarily directed towards the purposes of the Ottoman wars. Hunyadi mastered his military skills on the southern borderlands of the Kingdom of Hungary that were exposed to Ottoman attacks. Appointed Ban of Szörény in 1439, appointed Voivode of Transylvania, Counts of the Székelys and Chief Captain of Nándorfehérvár (now Belgrade) in 1441 and head of a several of southern counties of the Kingdom of Hungary, he assumed responsibility for the defense of the frontiers. He adopted the Hussite method of using wagons for military purposes. He employed professional soldiers, but also mobilized local peasantry against invaders. These innovations contributed to his earliest successes against the Ottoman troops who were plundering the southern marches in the early 1440s. In the year of 1442, Hunyadi won four victories against the Ottomans, two of which were decisive. In March 1442, Hunyadi defeated Mezid Bey and the raiding Ottoman army at the Battle of Szeben in the south part of the Kingdom of Hungary in Transylvania. In September 1442, Hunyadi defeated a large Ottoman army of Beylerbey Şehabeddin, the Provincial Governor of Rumelia. This was the first time that a European army defeated such a large Ottoman force, composed not only of raiders, but of the provincial cavalry led by their own sanjak beys (governors) and accompanied by the formidable janissaries. Although defeated in the battle of Varna in 1444 and in the second battle of Kosovo in 1448, his successful "Long Campaign" across the Balkan Mountains in 1443–44 and defence of Belgrade (Nándorfehérvár) in 1456, against troops led personally by the sultan, established his reputation as a great general. The pope ordered that European churches ring their bells at noon to gather the faithful in prayer for those who were fighting. The bells of Christian churches are rung at noon to commemorate the Belgrade victory. John Hunyadi was also an eminent statesman. He actively took part in the civil war between the partisans of Wladislas I and the minor Ladislaus V, two claimants to the throne of Hungary in the early 1440s, on behalf of the former. Popular among the lesser nobility, the Diet of Hungary appointed him, in 1445, as one of the seven "Captains in Chief" responsible for the administration of state affairs until Ladislaus V (by that time unanimously accepted as king) came of age. The next Diet went even further, electing Hunyadi as sole regent with the title of governor. When he resigned from this office in 1452, the sovereign awarded him with the first hereditary title (perpetual count of Beszterce/Bistrița) in the Kingdom of Hungary. He had by this time become one of the wealthiest landowners in the kingdom, and preserved his influence in the Diet up until his death. This Athleta Christi (Christ's Champion), as Pope Pius II referred to him, died some three weeks after his triumph at Belgrade, falling to an epidemic that had broken out in the crusader camp. However, his victories over the Turks prevented them from invading the Kingdom of Hungary for more than 60 years. His fame was a decisive factor in the election of his son, Matthias Corvinus, as king by the Diet of 1457. Hunyadi is a popular historical figure among Hungarians, Romanians, Serbs, Bulgarians and other nations of the region.
6. Elena Ceaușescu (1916 - 1989)
With an HPI of 72.82, Elena Ceaușescu is the 6th most famous Romanian Politician. Her biography has been translated into 46 different languages.
Elena Ceaușescu (Romanian pronunciation: [eˈlena tʃe̯a.uˈʃesku]; born Lenuța Petrescu; 7 January 1916 – 25 December 1989) was a Romanian communist politician who was the wife of Nicolae Ceaușescu, General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party and leader of the Socialist Republic of Romania. She was also the Deputy Prime Minister of Romania. Following the Romanian Revolution in 1989, she was executed alongside her husband on 25 December. She was born Lenuța Petrescu into a peasant family in Petrești commune, Dâmbovița County, in the historical region of Wallachia. Her father worked as a ploughman. She was able to acquire only an elementary school level education. After elementary school, she moved along with her brother to Bucharest, where she worked as a laboratory assistant before finding employment in a textile factory. She joined the Bucharest branch of the Romanian Communist Party in 1939 and met 21-year-old Nicolae Ceaușescu. Ceaușescu was instantly attracted to her which, reportedly, made him never look at another woman in a romantic manner. Their relationship was interrupted by Ceaușescu's frequent stints in prison, and they married on 23 December 1946. After the Communists took power, Elena Ceaușescu worked as a secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and was an unimportant figure until her husband became Communist Party General Secretary. Elena Ceaușescu frequently accompanied her husband on official visits abroad. During a state visit to the People's Republic of China in June 1971, she took note of how Jiang Qing, Chairman Mao Zedong's wife, maintained a position of power. Most likely inspired by this, she began to engineer her own political rise in Romania. In July 1971, after a mini-cultural revolution launched by her husband, she was elected a member of the Central Commission on Socio-Economic Forecasting. Starting in July 1972, Elena Ceaușescu started getting various offices at senior levels in the Romanian Communist Party. In July 1972, she became a full member of the Romanian Communist Party Central Committee. In June 1973, she became a member of the Politburo of the Romanian Communist Party, becoming the second most important and influential person after her husband. She was deeply involved in party administration alongside her husband, and was one of the few spouses of a Communist Party leader to have a high political profile of her own. In June 1973, after having been nominated by Emil Bodnăraș, she was elected to the party's executive committee. In November 1974, at the 11th Party Congress, she was made a member of the (renamed) political executive committee, and in January 1977, she became a member of the highest party body, the Permanent Bureau of the Political Executive Committee. In March 1975, she was elected to the Great National Assembly, the country's national legislature, holding the seat for Pitești, Argeș County, the most important industrial region of the country, until her death in 1989. In March 1980, she was made a First Deputy Prime Minister, a state title she held until she was executed in the Romanian Revolution. From the early 1980s onward, Elena was the object of a personality cult as intense as that of her husband, which exalted her as the "Mother of the Nation". As she was led out of the courtroom before her execution she was recorded chastising the soldiers binding her hands with the words, "Shame on you. I brought you up as a mother. I raised you." By all accounts, her vanity and desire for honours exceeded that of her husband. As with her husband, Romanian Television was under strict orders to take great care portraying her on screen. For instance, she was never supposed to be shown in profile because of her large nose and overall homely appearance. Ceaușescu fled with her husband on 22 December 1989, after the events in Timișoara led to the Romanian Revolution, but she and her husband were captured in the town of Târgoviște. At the show trial that took place, she answered only a few questions since her husband took a protective role, asked her to calm down, and shook his head each time her mouth opened to reply in anger. On the afternoon of 25 December 1989 in Târgoviște, they were turned over to a firing squad and executed. Her arms, and those of her husband, were tied behind their backs. Their actual execution happened so quickly that a military journalist videoing the trial captured only the last round of bullets and the crumpled bodies on the floor. The aftermath, including echoes of the final volley, the pall of smoke, and the bodies immediately afterward, were also caught on camera. She was 73 years old. She was the only woman ever executed by the modern state of Romania. Ceaușescu was outlived by her mother, a near centenarian at the time of her death, her brother Gheorghe Petrescu (also an important figure in the party) and her three children: Valentin (b. 1947), Zoia (1949–2006) and Nicu (1951–1996). Nicu was an important member of the Romanian Communist Party, unlike his siblings. Elena Ceaușescu was buried in Ghencea Cemetery. After graduating from primary school in her village and moving to Bucharest, Ceaușescu continued her education in the 1950s through night courses at the local Politechnic, obtaining a bachelor's degree in chemistry. Later, she was promoted as a scientist, and was also awarded a PhD in chemistry. Since the Revolutions of 1989, several scientists have claimed that Ceaușescu had forced them to write papers in her name, and that the university gave her the honour of the doctorate solely because of her political position. According to a 1984 report by Radio Free Europe: "It is rumoured that, at the time when she wanted to receive her doctorate from the Bucharest Faculty of Chemistry, she met with strong opposition from the Romanian chemist Costin D. Nenițescu, the Dean of the faculty. She was forced instead to present her thesis to Cristofor I. Simionescu and Ioan Ursu at the University of Iași, where she met with complete success." The dissertation is titled the "Stereospecific Polymerization of Isoprene" and has substantial scientific value, still cited today. Elena Ceausescu went to school only up to 4th grade, which she failed, and thus it is implausible for her to have written the dissertation in 1967. The real authors remain anonymous, but indirect evidence points to a group of Romanian chemists led by Dr. Ozias Solomon; professor Solomon was a renowned chemist and he had been forced to publish with Elena Ceausescu. She was sometimes nicknamed Codoi, referring to her alleged mispronunciation of the name of the chemical compound CO2 (C for carbon, O for oxygen, and "doi" being Romanian for "two"). She was mocked by many, including an official who called her by this nickname during her show trial. Contributing to the humorous effect, "codoi" is an actual word in Romanian, meaning "big tail".In 1957, she was hired as a research scientist at ICECHIM (National Institute for Chemical Research). In the early 1960s, she was reported to be secretary of the party committee of the Bucharest Central Institute of Chemical Researches, and when her husband took over the party leadership in March 1965, she was listed as the institute's director. In December of the same year, she was elected a member of the newly established National Council of Scientific Research, and in September 1966, she was awarded the Order of Scientific Merit First Class. In March 1974, she was made a member of the Romanian Academy's Section for Chemical Sciences. Ceaușescu was given many honorary awards for scientific achievement in the field of polymer chemistry during the period when her husband ruled Romania. She is named as co-inventor on a number of patents, but many scientists claim she forced them to share credit on the patents. A group of Romanian scientists are trying to revoke Ceaușescu's scientific credentials and argue that her work is still being cited in modern, genuine scientific papers and influences current research despite Ceaușescu reportedly being "barely literate in science". In 1978, during Nicolae Ceaușescu's state visit to the United Kingdom, The Royal Institute of Chemistry admitted Elena Ceaușescu into membership as a Fellow. The Royal Society of Chemistry, the Royal Institute's successor later clarified that Ceaușescu's membership had been revoked during the Romanian Revolution of 1989. Also, patents under her name are still kept by the European Patent Office. Iran: Commemorative Medal of the 2500th Anniversary of the founding of the Persian Empire (14 October 1971). Italy: Dame Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic (21 May 1973). Argentina: Dame Grand Cross of the Order of the Liberator General San Martín (5 March 1974). Portuguese Republic: Dame Grand Collar of the Order of Prince Henry (12 June 1975). Philippines: Order of Gabriela Silang (9 April 1975). Malaysia: Honorary Grand Commander of the Order of the Defender of the Realm (1984) Elena Ceaușescu was an Honorary Doctor of several universities and was a member of some academic societies in the United States and countries in Asia, Europe, and Africa. Member of the New York Academy of Sciences (USA, 1973) Corresponding member of the Academy of Athens (Greece, 1976). Honorary Doctor Causa of the University of Buenos Aires (Argentina, 1974), Honorary Doctor Causa of Universidad Nacional del Sur (Bahia Blanca, Argentina, 1974), Honorary Doctorate degree honoris causa – Philippine Women's University (1975) Honorary Doctor of Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán (Mexico, 1975), Honorary Doctor of the University of Tehran (Iran, 1975). Honorary Member of the International Society of Industrial Chemistry (1970), Honorary professor at the National University of Engineering (Lima, Peru, 1973). Honorary Member of the American Institute of Chemists (Washington, D.C., 1973), Honorary member of the College of Chemists and Chemical Engineers of Costa Rica (San Jose, 1973). Honorary Member of the Council of the Central University of Ecuador and of the Institute of Natural Sciences of the Central University of Ecuador (Quito, 1973), Honorary Member of the Mexican Chemical Society (1975), Honorary Member of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences (1977). Honorary Professor – Polytechnic of Central London (1978) Research work on synthesis and characterization of macromolecular compounds, Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, 1974 Stereospecific Polymerization of Isoprene, 1982 Nouvelles recherches dans le domaine des composés macromoleculaires, 1984 Dostizheniia v khimii i tekhnologii polimerov, 1988 John Sweeney. The Life and Evil Times of Nicolae Ceauşescu. 1991 Edward Behr. Kiss The Hand You Cannot Bite, 1991. ISBN 0-679-40128-8 Works related to Transcript of the closed trial of Nicolae and Elena Ceauşescu at Wikisource
7. Béla IV of Hungary (1206 - 1270)
With an HPI of 71.97, Béla IV of Hungary is the 7th most famous Romanian Politician. His biography has been translated into 49 different languages.
Béla IV (1206 – 3 May 1270) was King of Hungary and Croatia between 1235 and 1270, and Duke of Styria from 1254 to 1258. As the oldest son of King Andrew II, he was crowned upon the initiative of a group of influential noblemen in his father's lifetime in 1214. His father, who strongly opposed Béla's coronation, refused to give him a province to rule until 1220. In this year, Béla was appointed Duke of Slavonia, also with jurisdiction in Croatia and Dalmatia. Around the same time, Béla married Maria, a daughter of Theodore I Laskaris, Emperor of Nicaea. From 1226, he governed Transylvania as duke. He supported Christian missions among the pagan Cumans who dwelled in the plains to the east of his province. Some Cuman chieftains acknowledged his suzerainty and he adopted the title of King of Cumania in 1233. King Andrew died on 21 September 1235 and Béla succeeded him. He attempted to restore royal authority, which had diminished under his father. For this purpose, he revised his predecessors' land grants and reclaimed former royal estates, causing discontent among the noblemen and the prelates. The Mongols invaded Hungary and annihilated Béla's army in the Battle of Mohi on 11 April 1241. He escaped from the battlefield, but a Mongol detachment chased him from town to town as far as Trogir on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. Although he survived the invasion, the Mongols devastated the country before their unexpected withdrawal in March 1242. Béla introduced radical reforms in order to prepare his kingdom for a second Mongol invasion. He allowed the barons and the prelates to erect stone fortresses and to set up their private armed forces. He promoted the development of fortified towns. During his reign, thousands of colonists arrived from the Holy Roman Empire, Poland and other neighboring regions to settle in the depopulated lands. Béla's efforts to rebuild his devastated country won him the epithet of "second founder of the state" (Hungarian: második honalapító). He set up a defensive alliance against the Mongols, which included Daniil Romanovich, Prince of Halych, Boleslaw the Chaste, Duke of Cracow and other Ruthenian and Polish princes. His allies supported him in occupying the Duchy of Styria in 1254, but it was lost to King Ottokar II of Bohemia six years later. During Béla's reign, a wide buffer zone—which included Bosnia, Barancs (Braničevo, Serbia) and other newly conquered regions—was established along the southern frontier of Hungary in the 1250s. Béla's relationship with his oldest son and heir, Stephen, became tense in the early 1260s, because the elderly king favored his daughter Anna and his youngest child, Béla, Duke of Slavonia. He was forced to cede the territories of the Kingdom of Hungary east of the river Danube to Stephen, which caused a civil war lasting until 1266. Nevertheless, Béla's family was famed for his piety: he died as a Franciscan tertiary, and the veneration of his three saintly daughters—Kunigunda, Yolanda, and Margaret—was confirmed by the Holy See. Béla was the oldest son of King Andrew II of Hungary by his first wife, Gertrude of Merania. He was born in the second half of 1206. Upon King Andrew's initiative, Pope Innocent III had already appealed to the Hungarian prelates and barons on 7 June to swear an oath of loyalty to the King's future son. Queen Gertrude showed blatant favoritism towards her German relatives and courtiers, causing widespread discontent among the native lords. Taking advantage of her husband's campaign in the distant Principality of Halych, a group of aggrieved noblemen seized and murdered her in the forests of the Pilis Hills on 28 September 1213. King Andrew only punished one of the conspirators, a certain Count Peter, after his return from Halych. Although Béla was a child when his mother was assassinated, he never forgot her and declared his deep respect for her in many of his royal charters. Andrew II betrothed Béla to an unnamed daughter of Tzar Boril of Bulgaria in 1213 or 1214, but their engagement was broken. In 1214, the King requested the Pope to excommunicate some unnamed lords who were planning to crown Béla king. Even so, the eight-year-old Béla was crowned in the same year, but his father did not grant him a province to rule. Furthermore, when leaving for a Crusade to the Holy Land in August 1217, King Andrew appointed John, Archbishop of Esztergom, to represent him during his absence. During this period, Béla stayed with his maternal uncle Berthold of Merania in Steyr in the Holy Roman Empire. Andrew II returned from the Holy Land in late 1218. He had arranged the engagement of Béla and Maria, a daughter of Theodore I Laskaris, Emperor of Nicaea. She accompanied King Andrew to Hungary and Béla married her in 1220. The senior king ceded the lands between the Adriatic Sea and the Dráva River—Croatia, Dalmatia and Slavonia—to Béla in 1220. A letter of 1222 of Pope Honorius III reveals that "some wicked men" had forced Andrew II to share his realms with his heir. Béla initially styled himself as "King Andrew's son and King" in his charters; from 1222 he used the title "by the Grace of God, King, son of the King of Hungary, and Duke of all Slavonia". Béla separated from his wife in the first half of 1222 upon his father's demand. However, Pope Honorius refused to declare the marriage illegal. Béla accepted the Pope's decision and took refuge in Austria from his father's anger. He returned, together with his wife, only after the prelates had in the first half of 1223 persuaded his father to forgive him. Having returned to his Duchy of Slavonia, Béla launched a campaign against Domald of Sidraga, a rebellious Dalmatian nobleman, and captured Domald's fortress at Klis. Domald's domains were confiscated and distributed among his rivals, the Šubići, who had supported Béla during the siege. King Andrew transferred Béla from Slavonia to Transylvania in 1226. In Slavonia, he was succeeded by his brother, Coloman. As Duke of Transylvania, Béla adopted an expansionist policy aimed at the territories over the Carpathian Mountains. He supported the Dominicans' proselytizing activities among the Cumans, who dominated these lands. In 1227 he crossed the mountains and met Boricius, a Cuman chieftain, who had decided to convert to Christianity. At their meeting, Boricius and his subjects were baptized and acknowledged Béla's suzerainty. Within a year, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Cumania was established in their lands. Béla had long opposed his father's "useless and superfluous perpetual grants", because the distribution of royal estates destroyed the traditional basis of royal authority. He started reclaiming King Andrew's land grants throughout the country in 1228. The Pope supported Béla's efforts, but the King often hindered the execution of his son's orders. Béla also confiscated the estates of two noblemen, brothers Simon and Michael Kacsics, who had plotted against his mother. Béla's youngest brother, Andrew, Prince of Halych, was expelled from his principality in the spring of 1229. Béla decided to help him to regain his throne, proudly boasting that the town of Halych "would not remain on the face of the earth, for there was no one to deliver it from his hands", according to the Galician–Volhynian Chronicle. He crossed the Carpathian Mountains and laid siege to Halych together with his Cuman allies in 1229 or 1230. However, he could not seize the town and withdrew his troops. The Galician–Volhynian Chronicle writes that many Hungarian soldiers "died of many afflictions" on their way home. Béla invaded Bulgaria and besieged Vidin in 1228 or 1232, but he could not capture the fortress. Around the same time, he set up a new border province, the Banate of Szörény (Severin, Romania), in the lands between the Carpathians and the Lower Danube. In a token of his suzerainty in the lands east of the Carpathians, Béla adopted the title "King of Cumania" in 1233. Béla sponsored the mission of Friar Julian and three other Dominican friars who decided to visit the descendants of the Hungarians who had centuries earlier remained in Magna Hungaria, the Hungarians' legendary homeland. King Andrew died on 21 September 1235. Béla, who succeeded his father without opposition, was crowned king by Robert, Archbishop of Esztergom in Székesfehérvár on 14 October. He dismissed and punished many of his father's closest advisors. For instance, he had Palatine Denis blinded and Julius Kán imprisoned. The former was accused of having, in King Andrew's life, an adulterous liaison with Queen Beatrix, the King's young widow. Béla ordered her imprisonment, but she managed to escape to the Holy Roman Empire, where she gave birth to a posthumous son, Stephen. Béla and his brother Coloman considered her son a bastard. Béla declared that his principal purpose was "the restitution of royal rights" and "the restoration of the situation which existed in the country" in the reign of his grandfather, Béla III. According to the contemporaneous Roger of Torre Maggiore, he even "had the chairs of the barons burned" in order to prevent them from sitting in his presence during the meetings of the royal council. Béla set up special commissions which revised all royal charters of land grants made after 1196. The annulment of former donations alienated many of his subjects from the King. Pope Gregory IX protested strongly at the withdrawal of royal grants made to the Cistercians and the military orders. In exchange for Béla's renouncing of the taking back of royal estates in 1239, the Pope authorized him to employ local Jews and Muslims in financial administration, which had for decades been opposed by the Holy See. After returning from Magna Hungaria in 1236, Friar Julian informed Béla of the Mongols, who had by that time reached the Volga River and were planning to invade Europe. The Mongols invaded Desht-i Qipchaq—the westernmost regions of the Eurasian Steppes—and routed the Cumans. Fleeing the Mongols, at least 40,000 Cumans approached the eastern borders of the Kingdom of Hungary and demanded admission in 1239. Béla only agreed to give them shelter after their leader, Köten, promised to convert together with his people to Christianity, and to fight against the Mongols. However, the settlement of masses of nomadic Cumans in the plains along the Tisza River gave rise to many conflicts between them and the local villagers. Béla, who needed the Cumans' military support, rarely punished them for their robberies, rapes and other misdeeds. His Hungarian subjects thought that he was biased in the Cumans' favor, thus "enmity emerged between the people and the king", according to Roger of Torre Maggiore. Béla supported the development of towns. For instance, he confirmed the liberties of the citizens of Székesfehérvár and granted privileges to Hungarian and German settlers in Bars (Starý Tekov, Slovakia) in 1237. Zadar, a town in Dalmatia which had been lost to Venice in 1202, acknowledged Béla's suzerainty in 1240. The Mongols gathered in the lands bordering Hungary and Poland under the command of Batu Khan in December 1240. They demanded Béla's submission to their Great Khan Ögödei, but Béla refused to yield and had the mountain passes fortified. The Mongols broke through the barricades erected in the Verecke Pass (Veretsky Pass, Ukraine) on 12 March 1241. Duke Frederick II of Austria, who arrived to assist Béla against the invaders, defeated a small Mongol troop near Pest. He seized prisoners, including Cumans from the Eurasian Steppes who had been forced to join the Mongols. When the citizens of Pest realized the presence of Cumans in the invading army, mass hysteria emerged. The townsfolk accused Köten and their Cumans of cooperating with the enemy. A riot broke out and the mob massacred Köten's retinue. Köten was either slaughtered or committed suicide. On hearing about Köten's fate, his Cumans decided to leave Hungary and destroyed many villages on their way towards the Balkan Peninsula. With the Cumans' departure Béla lost his most valuable allies. He could muster an army of less than 60,000 against the invaders. The royal army was ill-prepared and its commanders—the barons alienated by Béla's policy—"would have liked the king to be defeated so that they would then be dearer to him", according to Roger of Torre Maggiore's account. The Hungarian army was virtually annihilated in the Battle of Mohi on the Sajó River on 11 April 1241. A great number of Hungarian lords, prelates and noblemen were killed, and Béla himself narrowly escaped from the battlefield. He fled through Nyitra to Pressburg (Nitra and Bratislava in Slovakia). The triumphant Mongols occupied and ravaged most lands to the east of the Danube River by the end of June. Upon Duke Frederick II of Austria's invitation, Béla went to Hainburg an der Donau. However, instead of helping Béla, the Duke forced him to cede three counties (most probably Locsmánd, Pozsony, and Sopron). From Hainburg, Béla fled to Zagreb and sent letters to Pope Gregory IX, Emperor Frederick II, King Louis IX of France and other Western European monarchs, urging them to send reinforcements to Hungary. In the hope of military assistance, he even accepted Emperor Frederick II's suzerainty in June. The Pope declared a Crusade against the Mongols, but no reinforcements arrived. The Mongols crossed the frozen Danube early in 1242. A Mongol detachment under the command of Kadan, a son of Great Khan Ögödei, chased Béla from town to town in Dalmatia. Béla took refugee in the well-fortified Trogir. Before Kadan laid siege to the town in March, news arrived of the Great Khan's death. Batu Khan wanted to attend at the election of Ögödei's successor with sufficient troops and ordered the withdrawal of all Mongol forces. Béla, who was grateful to Trogir, granted it lands near Split, causing a lasting conflict between the two Dalmatian towns. Upon his return to Hungary in May 1242, Béla found a country in ruins. Devastation was especially heavy in the plains east of the Danube where at least half of the villages were depopulated. The Mongols had destroyed most traditional centers of administration, which were defended by earth-and-timber walls. Only well-fortified places, such as Esztergom, Székesfehérvár and the Pannonhalma Abbey, had successfully resisted siege. A severe famine followed in 1242 and 1243. Preparation for a new Mongol invasion was the central concern of Béla's policy. In a letter of 1247 to Pope Innocent IV, Béla announced his plan to strengthen the Danube—the "river of confrontations"—with new forts. He abandoned the ancient royal prerogative to build and own castles, promoting the erection of nearly 100 new fortresses by the end of his reign. These fortresses included a new castle Béla had built at Nagysáros (Veľký Šariš, Slovakia), and another castle Béla and his wife had built at Visegrád. Béla attempted to increase the number of the soldiers and to improve their equipment. He made land grants in the forested regions and obliged the new landowners to equip heavily armoured cavalrymen to serve in the royal army. For instance, the so-called ten-lanced nobles of Szepes (Spiš, Slovakia) received their privileges from Béla in 1243. He even allowed the barons and prelates to employ armed noblemen, who had previously been directly subordinated to the sovereign, in their private retinue (banderium). Béla granted the Banate of Szörény to the Knights Hospitaller on 2 June 1247, but the Knights abandoned the region by 1260. To replace the loss of at least 15 percent of the population, who perished during the Mongol invasion and the ensuing famine, Béla promoted colonization. He granted special liberties to the colonists, including personal freedom and favorable tax treatment. Germans, Moravians, Poles, Ruthenians and other "guests" arrived from neighboring countries and were settled in depopulated or sparsely populated regions. He also persuaded the Cumans, who had in 1241 left Hungary, to return and settle in the plains along the River Tisza. He even arranged the engagement of his firstborn son, Stephen, who was crowned king-junior in or before 1246, to Elisabeth, a daughter of a Cuman chieftain. Béla granted the privileges of Székesfehérvár to more than 20 settlements, promoting their development into self-governing towns. The liberties of the mining towns in Upper Hungary were also spelled out in Béla's reign. For defensive purposes, he moved the citizens of Pest to a hill on the opposite side of the Danube in 1248. Within two decades their new fortified town, Buda, became the most important center of commerce in Hungary. Béla also granted privileges to Gradec, the fortified center of Zagreb, in 1242 and confirmed them in 1266. Béla adopted an active foreign policy soon after the withdrawal of the Mongols. In the second half of 1242 he invaded Austria and forced Duke Frederick II to surrender the three counties ceded to him during the Mongol invasion. On the other hand, Venice occupied Zadar in the summer of 1243. Béla renounced Zadar on 30 June 1244, but Venice acknowledged his claim to one third of the customs revenues of the Dalmatian town. Béla set up a defensive alliance against the Mongols. He married three of his daughters to princes whose countries were also threatened by the Mongols. Rostislav Mikhailovich, a pretender to the Principality of Halych, was the first to marry, in 1243, one of Béla's daughters, Anna. Béla supported his son-in-law to invade Halych in 1245, but Rostislav's opponent, Daniil Romanovich repulsed their attack. On 21 August 1245 Pope Innocent IV freed Béla of the oath of fidelity he had taken to Emperor Frederick during the Mongol invasion. In the following year Duke Frederick II of Austria invaded Hungary. He routed Béla's army in the Battle of the Leitha River on 15 June 1246, but perished in the battlefield. His childless death gave rise to a series of conflicts, because both his niece, Gertrude, and his sister, Margaret, made a claim to Austria and Styria. Béla decided to intervene in the conflict only after the danger of a second Mongol invasion had diminished by the end of the 1240s. In retaliation of a former Austrian incursion into Hungary, Béla made a plundering raid into Austria and Styria in the summer of 1250. In this year he met and concluded a peace treaty with Daniil Romanovich, Prince of Halych in Zólyom (Zvolen, Slovakia). With Béla's mediation, a son of his new ally Roman married Gertrude of Austria. Béla and Daniil Romanovich united their troops and invaded Austria and Moravia in June 1252. After their withdrawal, Ottokar, Margrave of Moravia—who had married Margaret of Austria—invaded and occupied Austria and Styria. In the summer of 1253, Béla launched a campaign against Moravia and laid siege to Olomouc. Daniil Romanovich, Boleslaw the Chaste of Cracow, and Wladislaw of Opole intervened on Béla's behalf, but he lifted the siege by the end of June. Pope Innocent IV mediated a peace treaty, which was signed in Pressburg (Bratislava, Slovakia) on 1 May 1254. In accordance with the treaty, Ottokar, who had in the meantime become King of Bohemia, ceded Styria to Béla. Béla appointed his son-in-law, Rostislav Mikhailovich Ban of Macsó (Mačva, Serbia) in 1254. Rostislav's task was the creation of a buffer zone along the southern borders. He invaded Bosnia already in the year of his appointment and forced Tzar Michael Asen I of Bulgaria to cede Belgrade and Barancs (Braničevo, Serbia) in 1255. Béla adopted the title of King of Bulgaria, but he only used it occasionally in the subsequent years. The Styrian noblemen rose up in rebellion against Béla's governor Stephen Gutkeled and routed him in early 1258. Béla invaded Styria, restored his suzerainty and appointed his oldest son, Stephen, Duke of Styria. In 1259, Batu Khan's successor, Berke, proposed an alliance by offering to marry one of his daughters to a son of Béla, but he refused the Khan's offer. Discontented with the rule of Béla's son, the Styrian lords sought assistance from Ottokar of Bohemia. Béla and his allies—Daniil Romanovich, Boleslaw the Chaste, and Leszek the Black of Sieradz—invaded Moravia, but Ottokar vanquished them in the Battle of Kressenbrunn on 12 June 1260. The defeat forced Béla to renounce Styria in favor of the King of Bohemia in the Peace of Vienna, which was signed on 31 March 1261. On the other hand, Ottokar divorced his elderly wife, Margarete of Austria, and married Béla's granddaughter—the daughter of Rostislav Mikhailovich by Anna—Kunigunda. Béla had originally planned to give his youngest daughter, Margaret, in marriage to King Ottokar. However, Margaret, who had been living in the Monastery of the Blessed Virgin on Rabbits' Island, refused to yield. With the assistance of her Dominican confessor, she took her final religious vows which prevented her marriage. Infuriated by this act, the King, who had up to that time supported the Dominicans, favored the Franciscans in the subsequent years. He even became a Franciscan tertiary, according to the Greater Legend of his saintly sister, Elisabeth. Béla and his son, Stephen jointly invaded Bulgaria in 1261. They forced Tzar Constantine Tikh of Bulgaria to abandon the region of Vidin. Béla returned to Hungary before the end of the campaign, which was continued by his son. Béla's favoritism towards his younger son, Béla (whom he appointed Duke of Slavonia) and daughter, Anna irritated Stephen. The latter suspected that his father was planning to disinherit him. Stephen often mentioned in his charters that he had "suffered severe persecution" by his "parents without deserving it" when referring to the roots of his conflict with his father. Although some clashes took place in the autumn, a lasting civil war was avoided through the mediation of the Archbishops Philip of Esztergom and Smaragd of Kalocsa who persuaded Béla and his son to make a compromise. According to the Peace of Pressburg, the two divided the country along the Danube: the lands to the west of the river remained under the direct rule of Béla, and the government of the eastern territories was taken over by Stephen, the king-junior. The relationship between father and son remained tense. Stephen seized his mother's and sister's estates which were situated in his realm to the east of the Danube. Béla's army under Anna's command crossed the Danube in the summer of 1264. She occupied Sárospatak and captured Stephen's wife and children. A detachment of the royal army, under the command of Béla's Judge royal Lawrence forced Stephen to retreat as far as the fortress at Feketehalom (Codlea, Romania) in the easternmost corner of Transylvania. The king-junior's partisans relieved the castle and he started a counter-attack in the autumn. In the decisive Battle of Isaszeg, he routed his father's army in March 1265. It was again the two archbishops who conducted the negotiations between Béla and his son. Their agreement was signed in the Dominican Monastery of the Blessed Virgin on Rabbits' Island (Margaret Island, Budapest) on 23 March 1266. The new treaty confirmed the division of the country along the Danube and regulated many aspects of the co-existence of Béla's regnum and Stephen's regimen, including the collection of taxes and the commoners' right to free movement. The "nobles of all Hungary, who are called servientes regis" from both the senior and the junior king's domains assembled in Esztergom in 1267. Upon their request, Béla and Stephen jointly confirmed their privileges, which had first been spelled out in the Golden Bull of 1222, before 7 September. Shortly after the meeting, Béla assigned four noblemen from each county with the task of revising property rights in Transdanubia. King Stephen Uroš I of Serbia invaded the Banate of Macsó, a region under the rule of Béla's widowed daughter, Anna. A royal army soon routed the invaders and captured Stephen Uroš. The Serbian monarch was forced to pay ransom before being released. Béla's favorite son, also named Béla, died in the summer of 1269. On 18 January 1270 the King's youngest daughter, the saintly Margaret, also died. King Béla too soon fell terminally ill. On his deathbed, he asked his grandson-in-law King Ottokar II of Bohemia to assist his wife, daughter and partisans in case they were forced to leave Hungary by his son. Béla died on Rabbits' Island on 3 May 1270. Dying at 63, he exceeded in age most members of the House of Árpád. He was buried in the church of the Franciscans in Esztergom, but Archbishop Philip of Esztergom had his corpse transferred to the Esztergom Cathedral. The Minorites only succeeded in regaining Béla's remains after a long lawsuit. King Béla IV of Hungary left to his son, to Stephen, a prosperous, a rebuilt, a fortified kingdom in 28 years. Béla successfully concluded the alliance between the houses of Árpád and Anjou with a mutual marriage contract. In the last year of his life, in December 1269, Abbot of Monte Cassino Bernhard Ayglerius visited Hungary as the envoy of King Charles I of Anjou. He reported enthusiastically to his lord, the foreign, impartial contemporary envoy saw Béla's court as follows: "The Hungarian royal house has incredible power, its military forces are so large that nobody in the East and the North dares even budge if the triumphant and glorious king mobilizes his army. Most of the countries and princes of the North and East belong to his empire by kinship or conquest." Béla's wife, Maria Laskarina was born in 1207 or 1208, according to historian Gyula Kristó. She died in July or August 1270. Their first child, Kunigunda, was born in 1224, four years after her parents' marriage. She married Boleslaw the Chaste, Duke of Cracow in 1246. A second daughter, Margaret followed Kunigunda in about 1225; she died unmarried before 1242. The third daughter of Béla, Anna was born around 1226. She and her husband, Rostislav Mikhailovich were especially favored by Béla. Her great-grandson, Wenceslaus—a grandson of her daughter, Kunigunda by King Ottokar II of Bohemia—was King of Hungary from 1301 to 1305. Béla's fourth daughter, Catherina died unmarried before 1242. Next, Elisabeth was born; she was given in marriage to Henry XIII, Duke of Bavaria in about 1245. Her son, Otto was crowned King of Hungary in 1305, but was forced to leave the country by the end of 1307. Béla's sixth daughter Constance married, around 1251, Lev Danylovich, second son of Prince Daniil Romanovich of Halych. Béla's seventh daughter, Yolanda became the wife of Bolesław the Pious, Duke of Greater Poland. Béla's first son, Stephen was born in 1239. He succeeded his father. Béla's youngest daughter, Margaret was born during the Mongol invasion in 1242. Dedicated to God by her parents at birth, she spent her life in humility in the Monastery of the Blessed Virgin on Rabbits' Island and died as a Dominican nun. The King's youngest (namesake) son, Béla was born between around 1243 and 1250. The Greater Legend of Saint Elisabeth of Hungary (Béla's sister) described Béla's family as a company of saints. It wrote that the "blessed royal family of the Hungarians is adorned with resplendent pearls that irradiate all the earth". In fact, the Holy See sanctioned the veneration of three daughters of Béla and his wife: Kunigunda was beatified in 1690, Yolanda in 1827; and Margaret was canonized in 1943. A fourth daughter, Constance also became subject to a local cult in Lemberg (Lviv, Ukraine), according to the Legend of her sister, Kunigunda. The following family tree presents Béla's offspring, and some of his relatives mentioned in the article. Bryan Cartledge writes that Béla "reorganised the structure of government, re-established the rule of law, repopulated a devastated countryside, encouraged the growth of towns, created the new royal town of Buda and revived the commercial life of the country" during his over three-decade-long reign. Béla's posthumous epithet—the "second founder of the state" (Hungarian: második honalapító)—shows that posterity attributed to him Hungary's survival of the Mongol invasion. On the other hand, the Illuminated Chronicle notes that Béla "was a man of peace, but in the conduct of armies and battles the least fortunate" when narrating Béla's defeat in the Battle of Kressenbrunn. The same chronicle preserved the next epigram which was written on his tomb: Béla IV Encyclopædia Britannica
8. Ion Antonescu (1882 - 1946)
With an HPI of 71.51, Ion Antonescu is the 8th most famous Romanian Politician. His biography has been translated into 57 different languages.
Ion Antonescu (; Romanian: [i'on antoˈnesku] ; 14 June [O.S. 2 June] 1882 – 1 June 1946) was a Romanian military officer and marshal who presided over two successive wartime dictatorships as Prime Minister and Conducător during most of World War II. Having been responsible for facilitating the Holocaust in Romania, he was tried for war crimes and executed in 1946. A Romanian Army career officer who made his name during the 1907 peasants' revolt and the World War I Romanian campaign, the antisemitic Antonescu sympathized with far-right and fascist politics. He was a military attaché to France and later Chief of the General Staff, briefly serving as Defense Minister in the National Christian cabinet of Octavian Goga as well as the subsequent First Cristea cabinet, in which he also served as Air and Marine Minister. During the late 1930s, his political stance brought him into conflict with King Carol II and led to his detainment. Antonescu rose to political prominence during the political crisis of 1940, and established the National Legionary State, an uneasy partnership with Horia Sima of the Iron Guard. After entering Romania into an alliance with Nazi Germany, he eliminated the Guard during the Legionary Rebellion of 1941. In addition to being Prime Minister, he served as his own Foreign Minister and Defense Minister. Soon after Romania joined the Axis in Operation Barbarossa, recovering Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina, Antonescu also became Marshal of Romania. An atypical figure among Holocaust perpetrators, Antonescu enforced policies independently responsible for the deaths of as many as 400,000 people, most of them Bessarabian, Ukrainian and Romanian Jews, as well as Romanian Romani. The regime's complicity in the Holocaust combined pogroms and mass murders such as the Odessa massacre with ethnic cleansing, and systematic deportations to occupied Transnistria. The system in place was nevertheless characterized by singular inconsistencies, prioritizing plunder over killing, showing leniency toward most Jews in the Old Kingdom, and ultimately refusing to adopt the Final Solution. This was made possible by the fact that Romania, as a junior ally of Nazi Germany, was not occupied by the Wehrmacht and preserved a degree of political autonomy. Aerial attacks on Romania by the Allies in 1944 and heavy casualties on the Eastern Front prompted Antonescu to open peace negotiations with the Allies, which were inconclusive. On 23 August 1944, King Michael I led a coup d'état against Antonescu, who was arrested; after the war he was convicted of war crimes, and executed in June 1946. His involvement in the Holocaust was officially reasserted and condemned following the 2003 Wiesel Commission report.
9. Theodoric I (393 - 451)
With an HPI of 70.25, Theodoric I is the 9th most famous Romanian Politician. His biography has been translated into 53 different languages.
Theodoric I (Gothic: Þiudarīks; Latin: Theodericus; c. 390 or 393 20 or 24 June 451) was the King of the Visigoths from 418 to 451. Theodoric is famous for his part in stopping Attila the Hun at the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains in 451, where he was killed.
10. Leo I the Thracian (401 - 474)
With an HPI of 70.03, Leo I the Thracian is the 10th most famous Romanian Politician. His biography has been translated into 57 different languages.
Leo I (Greek: Λέων, translit. Leōn; c. 401 – 18 January 474), also known as "the Thracian" (Latin: Thrax; Greek: ο Θραξ), was Roman emperor of the East from 457 to 474. He was a native of Dacia Aureliana near historic Thrace. He is sometimes surnamed with the epithet "the Great" (Latin: Magnus; Greek: ὁ Μέγας), probably to distinguish him from his young grandson and co-augustus Leo II (Greek: ὁ Μικρός, translit. ho Mikrós, lit. "the Small"). Leo proved to be a capable emperor who ruled the East for nearly 18 years. He oversaw many ambitious political and military plans, aimed mostly at aiding the faltering Western Roman Empire and recovering its former territories. He is notable for being the first Eastern Emperor to legislate in Koine Greek rather than Late Latin. He is commemorated as a saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church, with his feast day on 20 January.
People
Pantheon has 174 people classified as Romanian politicians born between 220 and 1984. Of these 174, 48 (27.59%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living Romanian politicians include Ion Iliescu, Klaus Iohannis, and Traian Băsescu. The most famous deceased Romanian politicians include Nicolae Ceaușescu, Michael I of Romania, and Alaric I. As of April 2024, 15 new Romanian politicians have been added to Pantheon including Marcel Ciolacu, György Klapka, and Gheorghe Bibescu.
Living Romanian Politicians
Go to all Rankings
Ion Iliescu
1930 - Present
HPI: 68.32
Klaus Iohannis
1959 - Present
HPI: 67.01
Traian Băsescu
1951 - Present
HPI: 63.67
László Tőkés
1952 - Present
HPI: 57.87
Petre Roman
1946 - Present
HPI: 57.18
Marcel Ciolacu
1967 - Present
HPI: 53.89
Patriarch Daniel of Romania
1951 - Present
HPI: 53.07
Călin Popescu-Tăriceanu
1952 - Present
HPI: 52.01
Theodor Stolojan
1943 - Present
HPI: 50.70
Viorica Dăncilă
1963 - Present
HPI: 50.69
Nicolae Ciucă
1967 - Present
HPI: 50.24
Emil Boc
1966 - Present
HPI: 50.06
Deceased Romanian Politicians
Go to all RankingsNicolae Ceaușescu
1918 - 1989
HPI: 82.42
Michael I of Romania
1921 - 2017
HPI: 74.61
Alaric I
376 - 410
HPI: 73.88
Stephen Báthory
1533 - 1586
HPI: 73.77
John Hunyadi
1407 - 1456
HPI: 73.52
Elena Ceaușescu
1916 - 1989
HPI: 72.82
Béla IV of Hungary
1206 - 1270
HPI: 71.97
Ion Antonescu
1882 - 1946
HPI: 71.51
Theodoric I
393 - 451
HPI: 70.25
Leo I the Thracian
401 - 474
HPI: 70.03
Carol II of Romania
1893 - 1953
HPI: 69.86
Béla Kun
1886 - 1938
HPI: 69.86
Newly Added Romanian Politicians (2024)
Go to all RankingsMarcel Ciolacu
1967 - Present
HPI: 53.89
György Klapka
1820 - 1892
HPI: 51.66
Gheorghe Bibescu
1804 - 1873
HPI: 50.85
Gheorghe Apostol
1913 - 2010
HPI: 50.49
Cornel Penu
1946 - Present
HPI: 47.77
Dezső Bánffy
1843 - 1911
HPI: 47.43
Gheorghe Mironescu
1874 - 1949
HPI: 44.68
Manolache Costache Epureanu
1823 - 1880
HPI: 44.67
Gheorghe Fiat
1929 - 2010
HPI: 43.89
Mihai Tudose
1967 - Present
HPI: 43.57
Ilan Gilon
1956 - 2022
HPI: 41.66
Monica Macovei
1959 - Present
HPI: 37.92
Overlapping Lives
Which Politicians were alive at the same time? This visualization shows the lifespans of the 25 most globally memorable Politicians since 1700.
