Romanian Djuvara, awarded French Order of Arts and Letters in rank of Officer
Mar 5, 2010

Romanian Djuvara, awarded French Order of Arts and Letters in rank of Officer.
Bucharest, March 5 /Agerpres/ - Romanian historian Neagu Djuvara on Friday was presented the French Order of Arts and Letters in rank of Officer decoration by French ambassador in Bucharest Henri Paul, at a ceremony hosted by the French ambassador residence in Bucharest.

The French Government decorated Djuvara for his contribution to the knowledge of Romania's history and his writing and history career.

Ambassador Henri Paul commended Djuvara as a man of the world with a double French-Romanian belongingness, a moral and physical elegance, an openness to the soul and the highness of vision, courageous in peace and war and committed to meeting the challenges of a diplomatic mission in Africa, Niger, where he was an adviser to President Hamani Diori, and to his crusade against communism.

'Thank you Mr. Ambassador! Thank you France! I am happy. I am a French by culture and destiny,' Djuvara said in impeccable French. After relating with his trademark wit and brilliance a series of personal happenings related to winning civilian and military decorations in Romania and while in exile, he confessed that this decoration is a special one in the gallery of all the decorations and orders he has received.

Attending the decoration ceremony were also Andrei Plesu, Gabriel Liiceanu, Horia Roman Patapievici, Georgeta Filitti, Ion Caramitru and Christian Mititelu.

Aged 94, Djuvara, who is an intellectual, diplomat and historian, is one of the most remarkable personalities of Romanian cultural life.

The historian was born in Bucharest in 1916, in a Macedo-Romanian family that had settled in the Romanian countries in the last 18th century. He has a degree in letters from the Sorbonne (history, 1937) and is a doctor of law (Paris, 1940).

He served in the Second World War as a reserve cadet (June-November 1941), being wounded near
Odessa.

Competing for and getting a job with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1943, he is sent as a diplomatic courier to Stockholm on August 23, 1944 in connection with Romania's peace negotiations with the Soviet Union. The same day Romania sided with the Allies by a forceful action against the Government.

Being appointed secretary of the legation in Stockholm, Djuvara will stay in Sweden till September 1947.

Getting involved in the political trials in autumn 1947, he decides to stay in exile and, till 1961, voices his support in various organizations of the Romanian diaspora.

In 1961 he goes to Africa, to the Republic of Niger, where he will live for 23 years, working there as a diplomatic and legal advised of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and, concomitantly, professor of international law and economic history at the University of Niamey.

In the meantime he had resumed studying philosophy at the Sorbonne and in May 1972 he got the doctor's degree with a thesis dealing with the philosophy of history.

Later on he also gets a diploma of the National Institute of Oriental Languages and Civilizations in Paris.

From 1984 he was general secretary of the Romanian House in Paris till after the December 1989 Revolution, when he comes back to his native country.

Since 1991 Neagu Djuvara has been an associate professor with the University of Bucharest and honorary member of the A D Xenopol Institute of History in Iasi (eastern Romania).

'Between the East and the West. The Romanian Countries at the Beginning of the Modern Era, 1800-1848,' 'A Short History of the Romanians Told to the Young People,' 'How the Romanian People Was Born' and 'From Vlad the Impaler to Dracula the Vampire' are only a few of the books written by Neagu Djuvara.

The Order of Arts and Letters has three degrees (knight, officer and commander). It was established by the French Ministry of Culture in 1957. This honorary decoration is offered to the persons that distinguish themselves through their literary or artistic creation or through the contribution they make to the promotion of the arts and letters in France and the world over. AGERPRES
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