Ion I. Nistor (August 16, 1876 – November 11, 1962) was a Romanian historian and politician. He was a titular member of the Romanian Academy from 1915 and a professor at the universities of Cernăuți and Bucharest, while also serving as Minister of State for Bukovina, Minister of Public Works, Minister of Labor, and Minister of Religious Affairs and the Arts with a number of governments from 1918 to 1940.
Biography
Early life and education
Nistor was born into a family of peasants in the Bivolărie hamlet of Vicovu de Sus, Bukovina; in Austria-Hungary at the time, it is now included in Suceava County, Romania. He studied at the local school in Vicovu de Sus, then in Rădăuți, first at the elementary school and then at the German High School, getting his Matura in 1897.[1]
He then studied Philosophy and Literature at the University of Czernowitz and between 1898 and 1900, he completed his military service in the Austro-Hungarian Army, serving in Polei and in Vienna. He graduated from the University in 1902, after which he was named teacher of history and geography at the Suceava Classic High school.[2] Together with some of his friends, Nistor edited a magazine titled Junimea Literară between 1904 and 1914, first published in Rădăuți and then in Suceava.[3]
In 1904, Nistor married Virginia Pauliuc, daughter of Gheorghe Pauliuc, a Romanian Orthodox priest from Burla; one year later, on July 5, 1905, Oltea, his only child, was born.[4] He then moved to teach at the Orthodox High School, making use of the institution's library, better suited to his studies into the history of Moldavia.
Living in Iași by the time Romania entered the war on the Entente side, Nistor left Romania at the climax of the Romanian Campaign, when troops of the Central Powers threatened the region. In July 1917, he moved to Odessa, in territory held by the Russian Provisional Government, and began teaching Romanian history to the (mostly Bessarabian) students at the University of Novorossiya. He interrupted the course in November 1917, after a group of armed Russian revolutionaries broke into the University building. Nistor was, however, safely escorted outside by some of the Bessarabian soldiers who were part of his audience.[8]
In February 1918, together with other Austro-Hungarian refugees (including Octavian Goga), Nistor departed for Ovidiopol, Cetatea Albă, and then finally reached Chișinău. He stayed in the city, where he argued for the founding of a Moldavian University, and soon began lecturing on the History of the Romanians. He used the data gathered from the Chișinău Archives to write the History of Bessarabia, published in 1923. Nistor also witnessed the Sfatul Țării session which voted the union with Romania.[9]
After the war ended, he returned to his native Bukovina and was one of the members of the National Assembly of Bukovina in Cernăuți who voted for the union with Romania on November 28, 1918. Nistor was also one of the fifteen Bukovinians who presented the Union Act to Romania's KingFerdinand I.[10]
In the interwar period, Nistor wrote many historical works, including The Origin of Romanians and the Vlachs of Thessalia and Epirus and The History of Romanians in Transnistria (1925). He was also the director of the historical magazine Codrii Cosminului, which was published between 1924 and 1939.[12]
He was freed five years and two months later. After that, he continued writing, completing his works, History of Bukovina and The History of Romanians.[18] Nistor died in Bucharest in November 1962. Some 300 people, mostly Bukovinians and ex-members of the Liberal Party, came to pay respects at his funeral; the religious ceremony was officiated by Nifon Criveanu [ro], previously the metropolitan bishop of Oltenia.[19]
Stelian Neagoe [ro], "Ion Nistor, un istoric pentru eternitatea românilor de pretutindeni", foreword of Ion Nistor, Istoria Basarabiei, Humanitas, 1991. ISBN973-28-0283-9
Ioan Scurtu, "PNL și PNȚ: Rezerve, nemulțumiri, proteste. Partidele istorice sub guvernarea antonesciano-legionară", in Dosarele Istoriei, 9/2000
