Doctor Habilitate Victor Tsvircun, secretary general of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation Organization, wrote and edited an album entitled “Dimitrii Cantemir. Contemporary with the century of lights”. The book is the result of 35 years of research activity and of diplomatic service in Turkey. When presenting the album, the author said that Ruler Dimitrie Cantemir was an integrationist of the epoch in which he lived, IPN reports.

Dimitrie Cantemir (1673 - 1723) was ruler of Moldova in March – April 1693 and in 1710 – 1711. He was a writer, scholar, composer, encyclopedist, ethnographer, geographer, philosopher, historian, linguist, musicologist, and politician. He was the first Romanian who became a member of the Berlin Academy of Sciences.

Victor Tsvircun is a historian known in Moldova and abroad. He studied the work and life of Dimitrii Cantemir and wrote 18 monographs, collections of studies and documents and about 230 scientific articles about him in national and international magazines and encyclopedias.

Victor Tsvircun said Dimitrie Cantemir is a whole planet that must be thoroughly examined. He had profound ideas that were borrowed by researchers from his period. Namely Dimitrie Cantemir made effort to identify methods to combine the Christian and Muslim values so as to reconcile the two types of civilization.

Vice president of the Academy of Sciences of Moldova Gheorghe Rusnac congratulated the author of the album, saying the text was written in an accessible language. He said that Dimitrie Cantemir’s work is still topical as his pro-integrationist acts found reflection in the contemporary history of Moldova.

The album was edited in Turkey and was written in Romanian, Russian, English and Turkish. Victor Tsvircun is now working on a new book about how Dimitrie Cantemir’s remains were brought from the USSR to Iasi. He said that this act was a real adventure.