Professor Emeritus Antoon De Baets of the University of Groningen was presented on Friday evening with the Cantemir Award at Elisabeta Palace, on which occasion the academic stated that truth needs people to seek it, preserve it and defend it.

The distinction was awarded during an event hosted by Prince Radu, dedicated to the 9th Royal Colloquium, themed 'Attacks on History and the Student Press in Romania', held at the Filipescu-Cesianu House in Bucharest, and to the presentation of the 13th Cantemir Award.

In his address, Prince Radu recalled the 160-year history of the Romanian Academy and the Royal House of Romania, the tradition of the 'extraordinary coexistence between science and the Crown', which began with King Carol I's visit to the United Kingdom, to the Royal Institution in London, to attend a scientific lecture on the British Royal Observatory, and continued years later when Romanian researchers decided, in the 2000s, that such lectures should also take place in Romania, not only at the Royal Institution in London.

'Therefore, today we are responsible not only for meeting the expectations of Romanian and European society, but we also have a certain duty towards our exceptional predecessors, both at the Romanian Academy and within the Royal House, who made phenomenal efforts in the mid-19th century to establish a set of rules, principles and values that remain as relevant as ever today,' Prince Radu said.

In the Laudatio delivered on the occasion, the initiator of the Royal Colloquia, Professor Sorin Antohi, said he felt 'privileged and delighted' to praise 'Professor Antoon De Baets' lifelong effort on the front line, where the discussion about history reaches the depth of society without abandoning the highest standards of the profession, while opening itself to the reality of the world.'

'As a professor, public intellectual and scholar, he has been one of the leading figures in the field of historical studies. Particularly in his capacity as president of the International Commission for the History and Theory of Historiography, he has brought issues such as attacks on history, persecution and the erasure of history and memory to public attention. (...) That is why we considered him worthy of our respect and, consequently, of the Cantemir Award,' Sorin Antohi stressed.

At the beginning of his speech, Professor Emeritus Antoon De Baets discussed the fate of Dimitrie Cantemir's 'History of the Growth and Decay of the Ottoman Empire', whose original text was not published until more than two and a half centuries after its completion.

'Allow me to say a few words about Dimitrie Cantemir. He completed his great 'History of the Growth and Decay of the Ottoman Empire' in exile in Russia. After his death, his son Antioh had it published in London in an English translation which, as we now know, was abridged and altered. For two and a half centuries, Europe read Cantemir through a 'distorting glass'. Then, in 1984, Virgil Candea discovered Cantemir's manuscript, corrected by the author himself, in a library at Harvard. The original had survived its translators. I find this story comforting,' Professor De Baets said.

The historian acknowledged that much of his work has been devoted to 'the darker side of history, its censorship, the abuses to which it has been subjected and the persecution of those who write it.'

'For more than 30 years, the Network of Concerned Historians has reported on colleagues who have been silenced, imprisoned, exiled or even killed because of their work. Cantemir's manuscript reminds us that the truth about the past is fragile, yet tenacious. It can be mutilated, concealed and forgotten, and yet it returns. It rarely returns on its own, however. It needs people to seek it, preserve it and defend it. That is why I have always maintained that historians have duties as well as rights. We must honour history by writing it honestly. We must protect history when it is distorted and when our colleagues are silenced. And we must promote the democratic conditions in which history can flourish. The English scholar Alfred Housman wrote that accuracy is a duty, not a virtue. I would add that accuracy is where our duty begins, not where it ends. Progress is slow. Gordon Brown, a historian before becoming prime minister, is credited with saying that, in establishing the rule of law, the first five centuries are always the hardest. I can assure you that when it comes to protecting historians' human rights, it is exactly the same,' Professor De Baets emphasised.

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Born in 1955, Antoon De Baets (PhD, 1988) is Professor of History, Ethics and Human Rights at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.

He is the author of more than 200 publications focusing primarily on the censorship of history, historians' ethics and the history of human rights, including books such as 'Responsible History' (2009) and 'Crimes against History' (2019).

Since 1995, he has coordinated the Network of Concerned Historians.

The Royal Colloquia, which honour the memory and legacy of the enlightened princes Dimitrie Cantemir and Antioh Cantemir, were initiated by Sorin Antohi in 2017, continuing a tradition of meetings held under the auspices of the Royal Family, including conferences and colloquia in Sinaia, Oxford, Iasi and Bucharest. In 2018, the Royal Colloquia were placed under the High Patronage of His Royal Highness Prince Radu, Prince Consort.

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The Cantemir Annual Award continues the tradition of the Cantemir Prize, awarded between 2010 and 2012 as part of the activities that led to the establishment of the Cantemir Institute at the University of Oxford (2011-2013).

The awards have so far been presented to the following scholars, initially in recognition of books published in the preceding year: I. Stefan Lemny (National Library of France) - 2010; II. Alison Ashford (University of Sydney) and Philippa Levine (University of Texas at Austin) - 2011; III. Martin Dodge and Chris Perkins (both of the University of Manchester) and Rob Kitchin (National University of Ireland, Maynooth) - 2012; and subsequently in recognition of lifetime achievement: IV. Moshe Idel (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) - 2017; V. Gregory Claeys (Royal Holloway, University of London) - 2018; VI. Jörn Rüsen (President Emeritus, Kulturwissenschaftliches Institut, Essen) - 2019; VII. Alexandru Zub - 2020; VIII. Virgil Nemoianu - 2021; IX. Sorin Alexandrescu - 2022; X. Sir Vernon Bogdanor (British constitutional scholar) - 2023; XI. Mircea Martin - 2024; XII. Mircea Flonta - 2025.

The Royal Colloquium and the Cantemir Award are both under the High Patronage of Prince Radu. AGERPRES (RO - writing by: Daniel Popescu; EN - writing by: Simona Klodnischi)