Bucharest, Jan 22 /Agerpres/ - The ruler Alexandru Ioan Cuza was considered a hero of the peasants, President of the Romanian Academy Ioan Aurel Pop told a conference on Wednesday in Targoviste, on Cuza's role in the formation of modern Romania.

    "Cuza was also a hero of the people and especially of the peasants, to whom he gave land and whom he protected to such an extent that they mourned him as an apostle. When his body was brought to the country, because he had died in Heidelberg, far away, still young, peasants, about 40-50 thousand, gathered in Ruginoasa. And they were asked why they came and they said: because our prince died, the only and first ruler who loved us, who gave us land (...) Cuza was cherished as a hero of the peasants," said academician Ioan Aurel Pop.

    He added that the ruler Alexandru Ioan Cuza was a visionary, because he planned many things that were carried out after him. 

    "He did, therefore, in seven years, as many good deeds for the country as others did in decades of reign (...) In short, Alexandru Ioan Cuza is important. Because he participated in the exercising of the will of the Romanian people. When politicians distance themselves from the will of the Romanian people, they can no longer be called politicians, nor even statesmen. They become nothing. Cuza understood that he had a mission. We had then the first country program that we drew up and we carried out. The first step was Cuza 1805, the second was 1877 and the third was 1918, when we achieved a round Romania of 300,000 square kilometers, with almost 18 million inhabitants, an average-sized state in Europe, respected," said Ioan Aurel Pop.

    Alexandru Ioan Cuza was the first ruler of the Romanian United Principalities. Every year, on January 24, Romanians celebrate the Day of the Unification of the Romanian Principalities of 1859, a historic act accomplished under the leadership of Prince Alexandru Ioan Cuza, a political will of the two Romanian principalities, Moldavia and Wallachia , the first step, but extremely important, in the creation of the modern Romanian unitary state. AGERPRES (RO - Cornelia Dumitru, editor: Antonia Nita; EN - editor: Simona Iacob)