Dimitrie Onciul

Dimitrie Onciul (26 October / 7 November 1856 – 20 March 1923) was a Romanian historian. He was a member of the Romanian Academy and its president from 1920 until his death in 1923.

Biography Onciul was born in Straja, at the time in the Duchy of Bukovina, Austrian Empire, now in Suceava County, Romania. He studied at the University of Czernowitz, where he was active in Arboroasa and then in Societatea Academică Junimea, and at the University of Vienna. In 1884, he received his doctorate in philosophy from the University of Czernowitz.

He became a professor at the University of Bucharest and director of the National Archives of Romania. He was the first chairman of the Advisory Heraldic Commission. Together with Ioan Bogdan, Onciul founded a school-of-thought in Romanian historiography that approached history critically. He dealt with the issue of Romanian origin, demonstrating the formation of the Romanian people over a wide area on both sides of the Danube and rejected the theory of medieval migration of Romanians from the Balkan Peninsula. Much of his work dealt with and documented the formation of the early Romanian feudal states. He sought to separate Medieval realities from 20th century politics.

There are streets named after him in Sector 2 of Bucharest, and in the cities of Cluj-Napoca, Pitești, and Suceava.