Historian and heraldist, lawyer and politician, justice of the peace; deputy of the nobility and vice-president of the Bessarabian Zemstvo in 1910, when he asked for the introduction of the Romanian language in schools (however, the Moldavian School Commission was established only in 1917); he was also stand-in governor of Bessarabia. During the First World War he was director of the Red Cross. He was president of the Moldavian National Party, an artisan of the Union and the first inhabitant of Chisinau to put up a Romanian flag on his house. After the Union he was elected honorary member of the Romanian Academy, continuing his work as historian and heraldist.