Hașdeu Iulia
Main achievement
Writer, poet, soprano, and painter. She was considered a child prodigy of her time. At the age of 16, she was accepted to the Sorbonne, France
About
Iulia Hașdeu, born on November 14, 1869, in Bucharest, was an exceptional poet and writer, the daughter of scholar Bogdan Petriceicu Hașdeu and Iulia Faliciu. She manifested precociously as a child prodigy in the field of literature. At just two years old, she spoke French; at five, she wrote short stories; and at seven, she composed a historical novel about Mihai Viteazul. At 11, she graduated from the gymnasium at "Saint Sava" College in Bucharest, while simultaneously studying music at the Conservatory and foreign languages. Her literary talent was evident in her poems, plays, aphorisms, and philosophical works, most of them in French. This culminated in her preparation for her doctoral thesis at the Sorbonne on the topic of "Popular Philosophy among Romanians," where she delivered remarkable lectures on the Logic of Hypothesis and Herodotus. At 16 years old, in 1886, she became the first Romanian woman to study at the prestigious Sorbonne University in Paris, after graduating from Sévigné College, astonishing her professors with her erudition and oratorical talent. She collaborated with elite educational institutions such as the École des Hautes Études, studied painting and singing, and her posthumous work – edited by her father at Hachette in Paris – includes volumes such as "Bourgeons d’Avril," "Chevalerie," "Fantaisies et Rêves," and plays. Active in French and Romanian literary circles, she was appreciated by personalities such as Sully Prudhomme, leaving a rich legacy in romantic poetry, literary essays, and musical compositions, promoting the ideal of beauty and humanist culture. From a family of scholars – with roots in Romanian history and literature through ancestors like Tadeu and Alexandru Hașdeu – Iulia was raised with devotion by her parents, her mother playing an essential role in her intellectual education. Her parents' marriage was marked by deep love, and Iulia's premature death at 18, on September 29, 1888, from tuberculosis, devastated the family; her father built Iulia Hașdeu Castle in Câmpina and a temple at Bellu Cemetery in her memory, preserving her spiritual legacy through spiritualism and publications. Her short but intense life remains a symbol of female genius in Romanian literature.
