"B.P.HASDEU" MEMORIAL MUSEUM

The special daughter of a special scientist

Iulia, a child genius, being the only descendant of Hasdeu's family, was born on 2nd/14th November 1869 and died, eighteen years later, on 17th September 1888 from the unmerciful illness tuberculosis. From a very young age Iulia taught herself to read and write. She was gifted with a natural tongue for foreign languages and learned in one year the same amount that others would learn in ten. She wrote poems and prose in both Romanian and French and at the age of 11 she graduated at Ť St Sava ť gymnasium and the Music Academy of Bucharest in the field of piano and canto.

As a pupil of the " Sévigné" College of Paris, where she continued her secondary school studies, Iulia aroused her teacher's admiration for her brilliant intelligence. She took private lessons in drawing, painting, piano playing and canto. She continuously wrote poems, prose and theatre plays. At 16, after the school leaving examination, she attended the Faculty of Letters and Philosophy at " La Sorbonne". Iulia was, therefore, the first Romanian girl-student of " La Sorbonne" University in Paris. Meanwhile, Iulia attended courses at the Schools of Higher Studies in Paris. A brilliant future could be foreseen for her, but...touched by tuberculosis, in spite of the dedicated efforts of her parents to save her, Iulia gave herself to death, in peace, in the knowledge that this would be only a moment of passage. Her literary creation was to appear posthumously, under her father's careful watch, at Hachette-Paris, in three volumes " Bougeons d'Avril" (Buds of April), "Chevalerie" (Order of the Knights) and "Théâtre. Légendes et contes" (" Theatre. Legends and tales").

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