DIMITRIE CANTEMIR ON THE PROJECT OF UNIVERSAL PEACE
DIMITRIE CANTEMIR ON THE PROJECT OF UNIVERSAL PEACE

Summary/Abstract: The 17th and 18th centuries were considered as being really "centuries of project makers." In the current text, we propose to analyze the Cantemiriran project drawn up by the Moldavian Prince at Peter the Great’s suggestion. Cantemir's project is an Eastern correlation of the great Western projects. By means of his project exposed in the famous work "Monarchiarum Psihica Examinatio" he extracts the prediction from a legitimacy and a quadrilinear theory of the empire. In Cantemir's vision order cannot be imposed, it stems from the law of the four great imperial stages. In his century, Cantemir prophesied the entry into the fourth "imperial stage." We appreciate that the essence of his project resides in the idea of the concept of order which the Romanian thinker claims, with scientific arguments, that it spreads from East to West and encompasses the whole world. Cantemir records, in his theory, the four great imperial stages which he calls "monarchies" (monarchatus) and which have historically asserted themselves as huge formations, with a sense of empire. Was the idea of a world empire the condition for achieving universal peace?! Time has shown that it was a utopian project, impossible to achieve in such a diverse world dominated by irreconcilable contradictions.

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