Vasile Conta

Vasile Conta (Վասիլե Գրիգորեիի Կոնտա (Գոնտա); November 15, 1845 – April 21, 1882) was a Romanian philosopher, poet, and politician.

The son of a priest, he was born in Ghindăoani, a village in Bălțătești commune, Neamț County. He attended primary school in Târgu Neamț (where he was a classmate of Ion Creangă), and graduated from the Academia Mihăileană in Iași in 1868. Beneficiary of a fellowship, he went to study in 1871 in Belgium, first in Antwerp, and then at the Free University of Bruxelles, from which he graduated with a law degree in 1872. Upon returning to Romania, he was appointed professor at the University of Iași's Law School.

He died in Bucharest and was buried at Eternitatea Cemetery in Iași. A street in Sector 1 of Bucharest is named after him.

Antisemitism
Conta was the true founder of the Romanian ideological antisemitism. His criteria were no longer those of a socioeconomic nature; they were derived from the "nationalities principle," nationalities as units of race and religion, forming the basis of existence of a state and a homogenous nation.