Alexandru Tzigara Samurca%C8%99

Alexandru TzigaraSamurca was a Romanian art historian, ethnographer, museologist and cultural journalist, also known as local champion of art conservation, Romanian Police leader and pioneer radio broadcaster. Tzigara was a member of the Junimea literary society, holding positions at the National School of Fine Arts, the University of Bucharest and lastly the University of Cernui. During his youth, he was secretary to Carol I, the King of Romania. Close to the royal family, he also served as head of the Carol I Academic Foundation, where he set up a large collection of photographic plates. Tzigara achieved fame in 1906 as founder of the National Museum, nucleus of the presentday Museum of the Romanian Peasant, but was also involved in arranging and preserving the Theodor Aman art fund.

A native of Bucharest, TzigaraSamurca was born on April 41601601872, and baptized into the Romanian Orthodox Church. A popular rumor has him as the illegitimate son of Domnitor Carol I, the future King of Romania, to whom Tzigara was especially close in later years. Historian Lucian Boia gives some credit to this piece of oral history, and notes that Tzigara, like Wilhelm and Mite Kremnitz, had an unusually tight relationship with the royal family. Researcher Zigu Ornea, who notes that Tzigara may have been spreading the story around, argues This legend is naturally hard to verify but, in any case, it is a possible one, since TzigaraSamurca was born in 1872 and Carol I was present on our throne, as Domnitor, from 1866. Like Boia, Ornea notes that Tzigaras close relationship with the king, the kings repeated interventions on his behalf every time got stuck, and his contacts with the Kremnitzes were some additional clues to a royal bloodline. Historian Vasile Docea criticizes Orneas ve

Source: Wikipedia