Despre un boier moldovean (Iancu Istrati) si despre biblioteca sa si cititorii ei, la 1840
A Moldavian landowner (Iancu Istrati), his library and readers, in 1840

Summary/Abstract: We might still speak about people and their actions in the first half of the 19th century within the process of the Romanian society modernizing, even if they were not among the master minds in the revolutionary movements of 1821 or 1848, and didn’t run decisive deeds in changing Moldavia and Wallachia. The present article reconstitutes Iancu Istrati’s life, a Moldavian landowner, on the basis of his documents in the National Archives of Romania, and other papers of that time. I have chosen some of his actions he undertook as a landowner at Călimănești (county of Tutova) that practically proves how the Romanian society was modernized during the two decades after the autochthonous reigning had been re-instituted: his library, with its inventory researching and some of its readers; education of young people and his attempt to send a young boy to the Military Academy in Saint Petersburg and some data on the curricula at the boarding school; managing of his goods, modern measures in increasing it, and a brief inventory of a landowner’s house; his liaisons with important members of his family – his brothers Nicolae Istrati, writer and politician, and Melentie Istrati, Superior at Slatina Monastery and bishop of Huși, and his brother-in-law Vasile Adamachi, merchant, landowner and great benefactor of the Romanian Academy.

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