CANTACUZINO, Princess Alexandrina (1876–1944)

One of the most important leaders of the

Romanian women’s movement; President of
the Societatea Ortodoxă Naţională a Fe-
meilor Române (SONFR, National Ortho-
dox Society of Romanian Women) (1918–
1938); Vice-President (from 1921) of the
Consiliul Naţional al Femeilor Române
(CNFR, National Council of Romanian
Women) and its only President from 1930;
co-founder and first President (1923–
1924) of the Little Entente of Women
(LEW) (1923–1929); member of the offi-
cial delegation of Romania to the League
of Nations (1929–1938); Vice-President of
the ICW (1925–1936) and convener of the
ICW Art Committee (from 1936); Presi-
dent of the Romanian feminist organiza-
tions Solidaritatea (Solidarity) (from 1925)
and of the Gruparea Femeilor Române
(GFR, Association of Romanian Women)
(from 1929).

Alexandrina (Didina) Cantacuzino (born Pallady) was born on 20 September 1876

in Ciocăneşti (Ilfov county, near Bucharest), a village on her family’s estate. Both her
parents were from old boyar families. Alexandrina’s father, Theodor Pallady (1853–
1916), was a career officer—a member of a Moldavian boyar family first documented
in the twelfth century. In 1874, he married Alexandrina Kreţulescu (1848–1881), an
heiress from a well-known, wealthy Wallachian boyar family. Together they had four
children but only Alexandrina survived infancy. After her mother’s death, Alexandrina
was adopted by an aunt and raised by the Ghica family, another famous boyar family.
As a young woman, Alexandrina was sent to France to study.
In 1899 (?), Alexandrina Pallady married the conservative politician Grigore
Gheorghe Cantacuzino (1872–1930), son of Gheorghe Grigore Cantacuzino (‘the
Nabob’), the wealthiest Romanian landowner of the time and leading figure of the
Conservative Party. Her husband’s family was of Greek origin and claimed to be de-
scended from the Byzantine imperial family of Cantacuzino. For this reason, some of
the Cantacuzinos used the aristocratic title of prince/ss, a title also adopted by Alex-
andrina after her marriage to Grigore Cantacuzino. The couple had three sons (born
between 1900 and 1905) and the marriage lasted until 1930, when Grigore Cantacuz-
ino died. Alexandrina Cantacuzino never remarried.
Cantacuzino was an ambitious and enterprising woman. Proud of her boyar origins

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and affiliation to a family that had once produced rulers of the Romanian provinces,
she saw her purpose in life extending beyond the roles of wife and mother. Identifying
with Romantic ideas on the historic mission of the Romanian upper classes in the
creation and defence of the nation, Cantacuzino sought to translate them into practi-
cal endeavours that would strengthen the nation. This was an approach that resonated
with the ideology of (upper-class) women’s organized assistance for the socially disad-
vantaged as a way of serving the country and the nation. Her social activities began in
1910, when she helped establish the Societatea Ortodoxă Naţională a Femeilor Române
(SONFR, National Orthodox Society of Romanian Women), a Christian Orthodox
women’s philanthropic society. Cantacuzino also enrolled in the Red Cross and dur-
ing World War I, dedicated most of her time and energy to helping the wounded,
providing support to Romanian prisoners and opening canteens. In that period, she
organized and led the largest hospital in Bucharest. Her determination to remain in
the capital, then under German occupation, and to offer help to Romanian soldiers in
spite of warnings received from the occupation regime, almost cost her her liberty.
In recognition of her war activities and enterprising character, Cantacuzino was
elected President of the SONFR in 1918. Under her presidency, which lasted until
1938, the SONFR became one of the most important Romanian women’s organiza-
tions with branches all over the country. It was the organization Cantacuzino seemed
fondest of, and into which she invested most of her material resources and energy. The
SONFR founded numerous educational establishments, hospitals, workers’ and stu-
dents’ restaurants, and organized public lectures with a view to propagating a moral,
patriotic and religious spirit. Cantacuzino and the SONFR were inspired by the wish to
create an educational and cultural movement among the masses that would strengthen
the nation and instill the moral and ethical values of Christian Orthodoxy into society.
To achieve these goals, ‘Romanian women’ were called on to appropriate public space,
drawing upon the symbolic and social value of their mothering roles. Cantacuzino’s
passionate discourse of ‘women’s social mission’ attracted many upper- and middle-
class women aspiring to an active role in public life to the ranks of the SONFR. Alex-
andrina Cantacuzino also established contacts with members of two newly formed
feminist organizations: the Liga Drepturilor şi Datoriilor Femeilor (LDDR, League for
Women’s Rights and Duties, founded in 1911) and the Asociaţia pentru Emanciparea
Civilă şi Politică a Femeilor Române (AECPFR, Association for the Civil and Political
Emancipation of Romanian Women, founded in 1917). In 1919, Cantacuzino unsuc-
cessfully tried to bring the SONFR into an alliance with the LDDR and, in the same
period, became a member of the AECPFR. From then on, she became a dominant
figure in the emerging Romanian women’s movement. In 1921, she helped create the
Consiliul Naţional al Femeilor Române (CNFR, National Council of Romanian
Women), a federation of women’s organizations which aimed to bring together and
coordinate the work of all the Romanian women’s associations in Romania, acting as
the representative national body of the Romanian women’s movement at home and in

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the International Council of Women (ICW). Cantacuzino was elected one of the Vice-
Presidents of the CNFR and in this capacity became actively involved in lobbying for
women’s civil and political rights. In 1923, Cantacuzino took part in the Rome Con-
gress of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance (IWSA, from 1926 the Interna-
tional Alliance of Women for Suffrage and Equal Citizenship, IAWSEC) as a repre-
sentative of the LDDR. She took the opportunity on this occasion to create, together
with other East European representatives, the Little Entente of Women (LEW), an
alliance of women’s organizations from Romania, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia
and Greece, which sought to design common strategies for peace and the improve-
ment of women’s position in the region. Cantacuzino became the LEW’s first Presi-
dent, serving a one-year term. In 1925, she was elected one of the Vice-Presidents of
the ICW and became, in Romanian public opinion, the leading light of Romanian
feminism. The title of ICW Vice-President further strengthened Cantacuzino’s author-
ity in the CNFR. She became the second President of the organization, responsible for
external affairs alongside Calypso Botez, who, as President, was responsible for inter-
nal affairs.
In 1925, another Romanian feminist organization, Solidaritatea (Solidarity) was
created, from 1926 under Cantacuzino’s presidency. Solidaritatea soon became the
third Romanian organization—after the Liga Drepturilor şi Datoriilor Femeilor Române
in 1913 and the Asociaţia pentru Emanciparea Civilă şi Politică a Femeilor Române in
1924—to be affiliated to the IAWSEC. The new organization increased existing ani-
mosities towards Cantacuzino and her dominant role in the Romanian women’s
movement. Older feminists from the AECPFR and LDDR accused Cantacuzino of
attempting to monopolize and misrepresent the Romanian women’s movement at
home and abroad. After 1930, when Calypso Botez resigned from her position as
CNFR President and other important feminists withdrew from the organization,
Cantacuzino remained the only President of the CNFR. Between 1934 and 1937,
Cantacuzino’s critics tried repeatedly but unsuccessfully to create a separate federa-
tion of Romanian women’s organizations that could have replaced the CNFR as a
representative body abroad and counteracted Cantacuzino’s ambition to represent the
Romanian women’s movement. In the SONFR too, Cantacuzino’s ambitions and pre-
occupation with ‘internationalism’ in 1935 caused significant elements within the
organization to vehemently contest her leadership. Cantacuzino handled the situation
resolutely, forcing protesters to withdraw from the organization.
Despite criticism at home however, Cantacuzino’s ‘international career’ continued
successfully. Her energy and rhetorical skills were appreciated in the International
Council of Women and she was chosen to represent the organization on numerous
occasions (in 1927 and 1933 at the League of Nations; in 1936 at the Congress of the
National Council of Women of India; in 1936 as convener of the ICW Committee on
Fine and Applied Arts). At the League of Nations, Cantacuzino also acted as
IAWSEC rapporteur (1926, 1928 and 1938). From 1929, she was a technical coun-

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cilor for the Romanian delegation on committees formed to address issues such as
trafficking in women and child protection. From 1938, as an official delegate of the
Romanian government, she participated in discussions on international legislation,
dealing with such issues as abandoned and illegitimate children, a Children’s Charter
and the protection of children in wartime (together with Spanish and French dele-
gates, Cantacuzino supported the idea of the establishment of neutral zones for the
protection of children).
At the same time, Cantacuzino began supporting women’s social work as a mem-
ber of the financial commission of the Bucharest municipality (1927), and from 1928,
as municipal councilor of Bucharest. Preoccupied with the professionalization of
social work, she invested a great deal of energy into opening one of the first Romanian
schools for women social workers (1929). In 1930, the school was affiliated to the
CNFR under the name of Şcoala de Auxiliare Sociale (The School of Social Auxilia-
ries). Cantacuzino’s social activity resulted in her being awarded the Meritul Cultural
(Cultural Merit) with the rank of officer—the first Romanian woman to receive that
distinction.
In 1929, certain women of 21 years or over became entitled to elect and be elected
to local councils (those with primary or secondary education, vocational training,
bureaucrats, members of leading cultural and charity societies, war widows and
women who had received war decorations). At this time, Cantacuzino established and
became President of the Gruparea Femeilor Române (GFR, Association of Romanian
Women), which aimed to mobilize women in the exercise of their municipal rights, to
forge solidarity among them and to support women’s initiatives and interests at local
council levels. Unlike the older feminist organizations, the GFR forbade its members
to enroll in political parties because of women’s lack of political rights, in particular,
suffrage. The organization also strongly criticized the Romanian political party sys-
tem. In the 1930s, under the auspices of the GFR, Cantacuzino’s attitude to Romanian
democracy harshened, displaying a virulent nationalism with strong xenophobic ac-
cents. In that period, Cantacuzino and the GFR demanded women’s political rights
within the framework of a corporatist reform of the parliament that would restrain the
free competition between political parties. (In 1938, in accordance with the new Ro-
manian Constitution, Romanian women were granted parliamentary voting rights and
the first women MPs were elected.) There is no clear evidence of Cantacuzino’s sup-
port for the extreme-right legionary movement before the establishment of the legion-
ary regime in 1940. However in 1938, Cantacuzino was put under permanent surveil-
lance of the police at her residence, accused of having connections to the legionary
movement. Not long before her home arrest, Cantacuzino’s youngest son, an impor-
tant supporter of the legionaries, had been shot dead, together with the leader of the
movement. This episode apparently is not related to Cantacuzino’s show of support
for the legionary regime in 1940. Cantacuzino died of old age in September/October
1944.

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 An authoritarian but extremely enterprising woman, Alexandrina Cantacuzino was
probably the most important and controversial figure to dominate the Romanian
women’s movement. Throughout her public career, she combined nationalist beliefs
with women’s rights activism. As a result of her active involvement in a number of
national and international activities to improve the situation of women and children,
she became publicly identified with the image of the interwar Romanian women’s
movement.
Roxana Cheşchebec
Ph.D. Candidate,
Central European University, Budapest

SOURCES

(A) Romanian National Archives, Fond familia Cantacuzino, 1853–1965.

(A) Romanian National Archives, Fond SONFR, 1910–1948.
(B) Bulletin. International Council of Women IV–XV (September 1925–December 1936).
(B) 1e Conference de la Petite Entente des Femmes. Discours prononcés aux séances publiques de
3 et 4 Novembre 1923 (The first conference of the Little Entente of Women. Public
speeches held on November 3–4 1923) Bucharest: Tipografia “Dorneanu,” 1923.
(B) La deuxième conference de la Petite Entente des Femmes à Belgrade. Discours et rapports de
1–4 novembre 1924 (The second conference of the Little Entente of Women at Belgrade.
Speeches and reports presented on 1–4 November 1924). Bucharest: L’imprimerie des
livres religieux, 1925.
(C) Discours tenue par la Princesse Alexandrine Gr. Cantacuzene à la réunion publique organisée
par l’Association de la “Petite Entente des Femmes” à Belgrad, november 1924 (Speech held
by Princess Alexandrina Gr. Cantacuzino at the public meeting organized by the Associa-
tion of the “Little Entente of Women” in Belgrade). Bucharest: Imprimerie du Ministčre
des Arts et Cultes, 1924.
(C) Conferinta tinuta de D-na Alexandrina Gr. Cantacuzino in ziua de 31 Ianuarie 1926 la Fun-
datia Carol I asupra lucrarilor Conferintei Micii Intelegeri Feminine de la Atena in zilele de
6–13 Decemvrie 1925 si asupra calatoriei D-sale in Egipt si Ierusalim (Lecture held by Mrs
Alexandrina Gr. Cantacuzino on 31 January 1926 at the Carol I Foundation on the work
of the conference of the Little Entente of Women between 6 and 13 December 1925 and
on her trip to Egypt and Jerusalem). Bucharest: Tipografia Cartilor Bisericesti, 1926.
(C) Cantacuzino, Alexandrina. Cincisprezece ani de muncă socială şi culturală. Discursuri,
conferinţe, articole, scrisori (Fifteen years of social and cultural activity. Discourses, confer-
ence papers, articles, letters). [Bucharest]: Tipografia românească, 1928.
(C) Cantacuzino, Alexandrina. Femeileîn faţa dreptului de vot. Programul de luptă al grupului
femeilor române. Cuvîntare ţinută in ziua de 10 aprilie la Casa Femeii pentru Constituirea
grupului femeilor române (Women facing the right to vote. The action program of the As-
sociation of Romanian women. Speech held at Woman’s House on 10 April for the estab-

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 lishment of the Association of Romanian Women). Bucharest: Tipografia Capitalei,
[1929].
(E) Predescu, Lucian. Enciclopedia României “Cugetarea”. Material românesc. Oameni si înfâp-
tuiri (The encyclopedia of Romania “Cugetarea.” Romanian material. People and facts)
Bucharest: Editura Saeculum I. O., Editura Vestala, 1999 (first edition 1940).

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