Vasile Conta (Romanian pronunciation: [vaˈsile ˈkonta]; Armenian: Վասիլե Գրիգորեիի Կոնտա (Գոնտա); November 15, 1845 – April 21, 1882) was a Romanian philosopher, poet, and politician.
The son of a priest, he was born in Ghindăoani, a village in Bălțătești commune, Neamț County. He attended primary school in Târgu Neamț (where he was a classmate of Ion Creangă), and graduated from the Academia Mihăileană in Iași in 1868. Beneficiary of a fellowship, he went to study in 1871 in Belgium, first in Antwerp, and then at the Free University of Bruxelles, from which he graduated with a law degree in 1872. Upon returning to Romania, he was appointed professor at the University of Iași's Law School.[1]
He died in Bucharest and was buried at Eternitatea Cemetery in Iași. A street in Sector 1 of Bucharest is named after him.
Conta was the true founder of the Romanian ideological antisemitism.[2]: 14 His criteria were no longer those of a socioeconomic nature; they were derived from the "nationalities principle," nationalities as units of race and religion, forming the basis of existence of a state and a homogenous nation.[3]: 642
