Pârvu Cantacuzino

The Cantacuzinos were a family of Greek refugees, though probably related, through their patriarch Andronikos Kantakouzenos, with the local late-16th-century Prince, Michael the Brave.[1] Their exact relationship with the original Kantakouzenos, from whom they claimed descent, remains disputed.[2] Pârvu and Mihai descended directly from Drăghici Cantacuzino, brother of Șerban Cantacuzino, who was Prince in the 1680s, and of the scholar-politician Constantin II.[3] Drăghici, his brother Șerban, and their father, Constantin I Cantacuzino had been involved in various schemes during the 1650s and '60s, culminating in open conflict with Prince Grigore I Ghica. The latter ordered Constantin I hanged at Snagov Monastery, and mutilated Șerban.[4] This prompted Drăghici to take refuge in Istanbul. He died there in 1667, either from the plague outbreak or (as it was rumored) from poison administered by the boyar Nicula Sofialiul.[5] Through this connection, Pârvu was also a maternal descendant of Prince Radu Șerban and of the high-ranking courtier Diicul Buicescul.[6]

Pârvu hailed from the "Măgureanu" Cantacuzinos, whose origin is traced to one of Drăghici's sons, also named Pârvu (or Pârvu II). This prominent boyar and diplomat under several Princes married Ilinca, daughter of Mareș Băjescu, the Ban of Oltenia.[7] The couple's youngest son, Matei, also served as Ban in 1735–1740. From his marriage to the boyaress Pagona Rustea, with whom he had a daughter, Maria, and four sons, of whom Pârvu III was second.[8] Constantin, the eldest, left for Moldavia in 1733, establishing a Cantacuzino branch there before his death in 1761.[9] Remaining in Wallachia, Pârvu, Mihai and their youngest brother, Răducanu,[10] went on to occupy high offices of the court.

The Cantacuzino brothers' political ascendancy came at the height of a Phanariote regime, when Princes were directly appointed by, and subservient to, the Sublime Porte. According to historian Neagu Djuvara, the Cantacuzinos were technically Phanariotes, but emphasized their matrilineal connection to the House of Basarab. As such, they "would soon come to lead a 'national party', one hostile to the growing influence of the Greeks".[11] Pârvu III's first contribution to the Wallachian military forces came during Constantine Mavrocordatos' third reign (1735–1741). He was ordered to take up arms during the 1737 campaign against Russia; in fact, the army's role was to intervene between the Bucharest populace and the Ottoman army, policing against pillage and rape.[12] He was at the time married to Maria, daughter of a Moldavian boyar, Andronic Palade, but became a widower in 1741.[13] By 1759, Pârvu had married Elena (or Eleni) Hrisoscoleu, making him in-laws with Serdar Canache.[14] He married a third and final time to another Palade boyaress, Esmeralda.[15]

By 1761, with Mavrocordatos again on the throne, Pârvu was serving as the highest-ranking Logothete. In October of that year, he and his relative, the Medelnicer Toma Cantacuzino, exchanged property in Bucharest, making Pârvu owner of the "parental homes" in Șerban-Vodă mahala—located outside Lipscani, and named after their ancestor, the Prince.[16] He went on to serve command offices in the military, as Great Spatharios and then as Oltenian Ban.[17] Mihai, married into the Văcărescu family, was also appointed as Wallachia's treasurer, or Vistier.[18] Răducanu, meanwhile, served as a Clucer, marrying Caterina, daughter of John Mavrocordatos.[19]

The Cantacuzinos' role in anti-Phanariote dissent was more evident from 1764, following the arrival of Grigore III Ghica on the throne in Bucharest. After the Russo-Turkish War began in October 1768, Pârvu and his brother formed a group of pro-Russian boyars in Bucharest. Their connection with the Russians was a Polkovnik Nazary Alexandrovych Karazin (father of Vasyl Karazin).[20] While engaged in this conspiracy, Pârvu still enjoyed Ghica's trust, and, early in the war, was confirmed as Ban and Spatharios of the Wallachian army.[21]

Karazin presented the Cantacuzinos with a manifesto by Catherine the Great, the Empress of All Russia, promising to free the Danubian Principalities and the Balkans from the "barbarians' domination".[22] By then, the "Russian" party was also supported by burghers and commoners, who resented the Phanariote and Ottoman fiscal policies.[23] These, alongside boyars who embraced the cause of "Holy Rus", numbered in the thousands—according to Djuvara, some 12,000 men from Wallachia and Moldavia migrated to Russia and joined the imperial army.[24] In January 1769, with the Russians having taken Moldavia, the Orthodox Church of Wallachia sent a letter to the Empress, asking for their country to be occupied as well.[25] At around that same date, Catherine wrote to Cantacuzino personally. Her reply referred to the Wallachians as a "Slavic people"—according to historian Nicolae Iorga and political scientist Dumitru Th. Pârvu, hers is the earliest record of Pan-Slavism being tested on the locals.[26]

For several months, Karazin's mixed force did not venture out of Moldavia, and remained based at Focșani.[27] Bucharest was pacified by the Ottomans during spring 1769, when the Ottoman army again set up a direct presence. Following its acts of violence against Bucharest civilians, and aware that the Turkish garrison was undermanned, Pârvu created his own volunteer army of Romanians and Arnavutlar (Albanians), joined by some of Karazin's Zaporozhian Cossacks; in the early hours of November 16, these troops ambushed the Ottomans and arrested Prince Grigore.[28] Some 5,000 Ottoman soldiers were chased out of the capital, but only as far as Giurgiu, where they recuperated.[29] Following this move, a group of Wallachian boyars addressed Catherine a letter in which they asked for Wallachia to be annexed as a guberniya.[30]

Genealogist Eugène Rizo-Rangabé further notes that Pârvu was made the civilian "Governor of Wallachia" by General Pyotr Rumyantsev.[31] Pârvu then appealed to his in-law, Ienăchiță Văcărescu, who was to obtain for him the submission of the Boyar Council. Văcărescu was dispatched to Buzău County, but used the opportunity to cross the border into neutral Transylvania; as he recalled in his memoirs, he felt pressured by Karazin, and would not commit themselves to the Cantacuzino's unreserved Russophilia.[32] Reportedly, the Cantacuzinos hoped that Pârvu would take over Ghica's throne. This created additional frictions between the boyars, since Văcărescu wanted the throne for himself.[33]

Fortifications of Comana Monastery

A number of setbacks followed the early Russian victory. The Ottomans camped at Giurgiu began marching on Bucharest; Karazin's volunteers, sent to meet them, were defeated and had to barricade themselves in Comana Monastery.[34] Placed in command of a small Russian detachment and a unit of Verzișori (Wallachian Jäger),[35] Pârvu Cantacuzino promised to relieve them; he was ambushed by Ottoman troops in Vlăsiei forest, outside Comana. He was killed in battle alongside all his men, including a Russian Major by the name of Andreh[36] and the Verzișori Captain Șerban Lăcusteanu.[37] Some 1,000 soldiers are believed to have been killed on the anti-Ottoman side.[38]

However, the Comana ambush became a Russian tactical victory: the Ottoman soldiers, believing that they would not be able to confront a stream of Russian new arrivals, backed out of the confrontation and returned to Giurgiu.[39] Pârvu's body was recovered by his followers and taken to the nearby monastery. Although the latter had been damaged during the fighting,[40] it was incidentally a traditional Cantacuzino burial site. Pârvu's remains were placed in the tomb of his maternal ancestor, Radu Șerban.[41]