Vasile Pogor

Vasile V. Pogor was a Moldavian, later Romanian poet, philosopher, translator and liberal conservative politician, one of the founders of Junimea literary society. Raised among the boyar nobility of Iași, he was the son of a similarly named poet-polemicist and translator. Vasile Jr was educated in the French Empire, and had his first career in law. He became a civil servant during the United Principalities regime, though he split with its leadership on matters of tax policy, making his fortune as a conspirator in the "monstrous coalition" coup of February 1866. He held seats and commissions in the Assembly of Deputies. In forming Junimea, alongside Titu Maiorescu and others, Pogor sought to counter the intellectual supremacy of Romantic nationalism and "Red" liberalism, by introducing a critical approach to nation-building. He supported Romania's Westernization within a conservative framework, tempering nationalist presumptions and valuing a culturally pluralistic society. Early on, he participated in the Junimist effort to diversify cultural influences, producing two separate translations of Faust I.