VACARESCU, the name, according to tradition, of one of the oldest noble families in Walachia. The first member of historical importance was IANACHE (b. 1654), the grand treas urer of Walachia, who was killed with his master, Prince Bran covan in Constantinople, 1714. His grandson through his son Stephan, also called IANACHE (or "Enakitza the Ban," 173o 1796), started a line of Rumanian scholars and poets; he was the author of the first known Rumanian grammar in the ver nacular, printed in 1787. While in exile in Nicopolis he wrote the contemporary history of the Turkish empire in two volumes (174o-99). He was also the first to attempt Rumanian versi fication. Greater as a poet is his son ALECU (Alexander), who died as a prisoner in Constantinople in 1798. In 1796 a collec tion of his poems appeared in Rumania. His brother Nikolaes (d. 1830) also wrote some poems, but they remained in ms. until 1860, when they were published.
By far the greatest member of the Vacarescu family in the male line was IANCU (1786-1863), the son of Alexander. An
ardent patriot, he sided with the national movement in 1821, and assisted in establishing the Rumanian theatre, translating many books and plays from German and French into Rumanian, notably the Britannicus of Corneille, a literary event of no small importance at the time. He inaugurated modern Rumanian poetry. In 1830 appeared his first volume of verse. He died in 1863. A niece of Alexander is the gifted writer ELENA VACA RESCU (Helene Vacaresco), maid-of-honour to the queen of Rumania, and Rumanian delegate to the League of Nations, who inherited the poetical talent of her family and has enriched Ru manian literature with her Bard of the Dimbovitza, and other poems and novels in Rumanian and in French, including Chants d'Aurore, which was crowned by the French academy ; L'Ame Sereine, and Rumanian Ballads, which obtained the Prix Jules Favre at the French academy. (M. G.)