Alexander Mavrocordatos Delibey

 Alexander (I) Mavrocordatos (Αλέξανδρος Μαυροκορδάτος; 1742 – 27 March 1812), nicknamed Delibey for his cunning, was a Phanariote who served as Prince of Moldavia from 1782 to 1785.

Life
Son of Constantine Mavrocordatos and Catherine Rosetti, he succeeded in May 1782 to Constantine Mourouzis, deposed by the Sublime Porte following the intrigues of the Russian ambassador in Constantinople. He owes his appointment to this same ambassador.

Mavrocordatos was dismissed in January 1785 at the request of Rajtschewitsch, consul of Austria in Moldavia, who complained to the Ottoman government to have been badly received by Mavrocordatos, despite being the representative of the Holy Roman Emperor. But it is possible that in fact this is only one aspect of the Austro-Russian struggle for influence in Moldavia: the Habsburgs already had occupied Bukovina since 1775, and the Russian czars coveted the Budjak and the mouths of the Danube, and each Empire advanced its pawns in the region.

According to Alexandre A.C. Sturdza, Mavrocordatos was known for his "versatility and difficult character" which gave rise to his Turkish nickname "Delibey".