Lauriano, Augustine Triboni

Born in Transylvania . The son of a Greek Catholic (Uniate) priest. He received a good education in the German schools of Sibiu and the PR School in Cluj-Napoca , studied philosophy at the University of Cluj-Napoca , then physics, mathematics and astronomy at the Vienna Polytechnic Institute, the universities of Vienna and Göttingen .

In 1842-1848, he was a professor at St. Sava College in Bucharest (since 1864, the University of Bucharest ), where he was a famous teacher. In Bucharest, he met and made friends with Nicolae Balcescu , a historian and revolutionary, one of the leaders of the 1848 revolution in Wallachia and Transylvania . In 1843 he joined the secret student organization (1843) and the Literary Association (1845), was a member of various nationalist and revolutionary societies.

Since 1845, together with N. Balcescu, he founded and edited the first Romanian historical magazine “Magasinul istoricu pentru Dacia” - a collection of historical documents about Romania.

Member of the Revolution of 1848-1849 in Transylvania. He was one of the leading ideologists of the Romanian Spring of Peoples , mobilizers and leaders of the Transylvanian revolutionary movement. He helped organize national meetings in Blage in 1848 and participated in the development of revolutionary manifestos of Transylvanian Romanians. In December 1848-January 1849 he was sent to Vienna to protect Romanian interests in the context of a new program for the preservation of the Habsburg monarchy by creating autonomous ethnic states within the framework of the monarchy. This meant the creation of a Romanian state by uniting the regions with the Romanian national majority in Transylvania, Banat , Maramures , Bukovina and certain regions of Hungary. After the defeat of the revolution of 1848, he continued to carry out journalistic and scientific activities in Vienna, resumed publication of the Magasinul istoricu pentru Dacia, lectured and published many documents related to the Romanian events of 1848.

Since 1851 he worked as an inspector of schools in Moldova . In 1867, he was one of the founders of the Romanian scientific society (which turned into the Romanian Academy in 1879), was the general secretary and president of the scientific society (academy), and chairman of the literary section (1867–1876). Lauriano, being a purist, tried in every possible way to expel Slavic elements from the Romanian dictionary ^[1] .

He was buried in the Bellu cemetery in Bucharest.

The main scientific interest of A. Laurian was the history of Romania and the origin of the Romanians . Actively worked on the development of science in Romania.

In the middle of the XIX century, he became the leading representative of the so-called Latin school in the historiography of Romania, which proved the direct origin of Romanians from the ancient Romans . His work History of the Romanians (Istoria Romanilor, 1843) began in time with Romulus and Remus and the founding of Rome in 753 before the birth of Christ. After the fall of the Roman Empire, he continued the history of the Romanian people using the type of reckoning Ab Urbe condita (abbreviated as: AUC). According to his AUC calculations, Peoples' Spring came in 2601.

As a linguist, he tried to codify the Romanian language based on Latin , using etymological spelling and clearing it of foreign extraneous layers.

As a result of this work in 1871-1876. together with John Massim published a two-volume “Dictionary of the Romanian language” ( roman. Dicţionarul limbii române ) and a glossary . This dictionary, however, was criticized in the scientific community, which ultimately led to the cessation of the existence of the Latin school in the historiography of Romania. As a result, he withdrew from public life, although he assumed the chairmanship of Transylvanian society, which was formed in 1867 to fight and protest against the creation of the Double Monarchy .

He was considered one of the main “ apostles of Romanianism”, his work served as a guide to action for a large part of the young generation of Romanian nationalists since the 1840s. He was the main exponent of the attitude towards the Roman heritage / Latinization, which strongly influenced the Romanian culture until 1878.

• "Tentamen criticum in linguam romanicam" (Vienna, 1840), where the author proves the greatest of all Romance languages, the closeness of Romanian to the Latin language;
• Coup d'oeil sur l'histoire des Roumains d. deux Dacies ”(ibid., 1846, in French, Romanian, German and Latin),
• "Istoria Romanitor" ( Iasi , 1843).

• Lauriano, Augustine-Tribonium // Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary : in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.
• August Treboniu Lauarian