20-24 septembrie 2009 - Biblioteca Metropolitana Bucuresti

172 Radu RaisaMavrocordat is outraged by Machiavelli’s statement, that the greatprinces were those princes who never kept their promises, who were ableto confuse the minds with their devious behavior. Mavrocordat states thatit was “an abomination to mistake an acceptable stratagem with a brokenvow”. 22As an enlightened despot, Nicolae Mavrocordat rejected Machiavelli’srules and principles, the textbook doctrine of absolute monarchy.Nicolae Mavrocordat was not the advocate of the use of force in orderto win the political power, but he pleaded for another way, namely ability.The translator of the notes, Em. Grigoraş, says that ability, named by himbyzantinism or oriental behavior, was morally superior to other politicalbehaviors. “The middle course”, and not the extreme, was the favoritecourse, according to Em. Grigoraş, of the princes from Phanar, who reignedover the Romanian Principalities for more than a century.I tried, with a certain emotion, to “undust” the books read and annotatedby Nicolae Mavrocordat, to underline his contribution to the developmentof culture, to the forging of a political philosophy and praxiology. I washappy to read the text of the conference “The Romanian Culture underthe Princes of Phanar”, delivered by Nicolae Iorgaon February 8th, 1898,at the Romanian Athenaeum. The great historian, only a young man thosedays, had in mind to rehabilitate the Greek princes of Phanar, demolishingthe disparaging ideas of the “Phanar eaters”, showing “how the Phanarage really was, what the political situation of the princes was, what theirmanagement was like, what their cultural influence was like”. 23 He gives usa sketch of the first Phanar prince, Nicolae Mavrocordat, emphasizing thathe was a learned, cultivated man, praised by Le Quien, who thought muchof his moral work, “On Duties”.The mere fact that a prince of a Romanian Principality annotates theworks of Machiavelli has a cultural, national and European value. Theculture and political experience, acquired during a long reign, allowedNicolae Mavrocordat to competently study and comment the writings ofMachiavelli.22Grigoraş, Em., Machiavel şi Mavrocordat.23Iorga, N. 1989, Cultura română supt fanarioţi, Cultură şi civilizaţie, Bucureşti:Editura Eminescu, 211, 213.