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Mikhail Mikhaylovich Kantakuzen

1858–1927

Born
13 Oct 1858, Iași
Country of birth
Principality of Moldavia, today Romania
Died
17 Sep 1927, Bordighera
facts
7
sources
1
images and files
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Facts and their sources

Tap a fact to see where it comes from.

A life in time

  1. Born · Iași

    Birth, Iași

  2. Died · Bordighera

    Death, Bordighera

What was it like?

The world around Iași, 1858: who ruled, who else was alive, how people lived. This is general history, not a record about the family, and every item shows where it comes from.

Mikhail was born the same year as Giacomo Puccini, Eleonora Duse, and Ethel Smyth.

Born the same year

  • Giacomo Puccini

    Italian opera composer (1858–1924)

  • Eleonora Duse

    Italian stage actress (1858-1924)

  • Ethel Smyth

    English composer and suffragette (1858–1944)

  • Gustaf V of Sweden

    King of Sweden from 1907 to 1950

  • Theodore Roosevelt

    26th President of the United States from 1901 to 1909 (1858–1919)

  • Max Planck

    German theoretical physicist (1858–1947)

Fashion

Decorated sheepskin waistcoats for feast days

A staple of both men’s and women’s festive attire was the bondice, a short, sleeveless waistcoat made of tanned sheepskin. These vests were elaborately decorated with embroidery, beads, or leather appliqué depending on the specific region of Moldavia.

Marital status marked by headwear

Women in Moldavia began wearing head coverings only after marriage, as young unmarried women typically went bareheaded. After marriage, they frequently wore a kerchief or a specific towel-like headpiece known as a marame.

Music

Traditional Taraf Bands and Instruments

Fiddler bands, known as tarafuri, typically played a mix of violin, panpipes, and the kobza lute, later adding the cimbalum. These musicians were central to local festivities, often performing inside a circle of dancers.

Winter Festival Dances and Rituals

During winter festivals, young men performed the dance of the caiuti, moving with horse heads attached to their waists, adorned with colorful pom-poms and tassels. Another staple was the bear dance, where performers costumed as bears danced until falling dead, only to return to life, symbolizing man's power to tame nature.

Getting around

Travel Delays Caused by Weather

During the mid-19th century, traveling in autumn or spring was notoriously difficult due to mud, which could reduce travel speeds to as little as 4 km per hour even with eight horses pulling a carriage. Travelers often faced long delays at rivers or fords, where carts would gather for up to a week waiting for water levels to recede.

Around 1850–1850

Costly and Slow Carriage Travel

Around 1850, a journey from Bucharest to Iași by carriage could take ten days, although wealthy travelers paying for frequent horse changes could complete it in five. Traveling was prohibitively expensive for ordinary people, who rarely ventured beyond their nearest market town.

Daily life
Around 1864–1899

Schooling became compulsory for kids

An 1864 act endowed Romania with free and compulsory elementary education, and later described as compelling families to send children to primary school. Education methods could be harsh and parents often avoided schooling when the benefit was unclear.

Food

Pork as an identity marker

Pork was the primary meat, traditionally slaughtered at Christmas during a ritual called Ignat. It served as a vital source of fat and food, unlike sheep which were often sold to meet Ottoman demands.

Staple foods of ordinary families

The staple food was polenta, often eaten with dairy products like sour milk, cheese, or eggs. Families also commonly consumed onions, garlic, and fermented cabbage in winter.

Prices and wages
Around 1859–1878

Long daily working hours

The workday for laborers often lasted 12 to 14 hours, sometimes reaching 17 to 18 hours, typically with only a break for lunch.

Around 1859–1878

Worker daily wages were 3-4 lei

Workers in the city of Galați during the mid-to-late 19th century typically earned daily wages of 3 to 4 lei.

Work

Enslaved labor before mid-century abolition

Until their final abolition in the 1850s, Romani people held as slaves provided essential labor as blacksmiths, farriers, and domestic servants, often remaining the only ironmongers in the region for long periods. These enslaved workers were categorized as either sedentary (vătrași) or nomadic (lăieși) and served boyars, monasteries, or the state.

Common jobs in 19th-century Moldavia

The majority of the population were peasants working the land, but urban centers featured diverse skilled merchants and artisans organized into guilds. Agricultural workers included free peasants, serfs, and landless laborers.

News and letters

First Moldavian postage stamps issued in 1858

In 1858, the Principality of Moldavia issued its first postage stamps, known as the Moldavian Bull's Heads, with values of 27, 54, 81, and 108 parale.

Post relay stations every 20 kilometers

A post measure was equivalent to 20 kilometers, which was the standard distance between two horse-changing relay stations.

During their lifetime

  1. 1873

    Cholera epidemic strikes (1873)

    A cholera epidemic in 1873 devastated the population, resulting in 3,200 deaths out of 18,000 recorded infections.

  2. 1881

    Romania becomes a kingdom (1881)

    In 1881, the parliament proclaimed Romania a kingdom, and King Charles was crowned in Bucharest using a crown forged from a captured Ottoman cannon.

  3. 1888

    First National Healthcare Law Enacted

    Following a cholera pandemic that killed approximately 50,000 people, the government enacted Italy's first national healthcare law in 1888.

  4. 1888

    Introduction of Emigration Regulations

    The 1888 Emigration Act established the first formal regulations for citizens leaving the country as transatlantic emigration climbed to nearly 205,000 that year.

  5. 1895

    Electric trams introduced (1895)

    On 9 December 1895, the first electric tramway was introduced in Bucharest, modernizing urban public transportation.

  6. 1898

    The Bread Riots of 1898

    Widespread bread riots broke out across Italy in 1898 due to rising wheat prices, leading to mass repression, including the Bava Beccaris massacre in Milan where up to 400 people were killed.

Family

Parents

Spouses

Ancestors and children

Open the full tree

Four generations back to the right, the children to the left. The number beside a child counts the generations of descendants known after them.