August Treboniu Laurian at Astra Park, Sibiu

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For a nation that has politically fallen, as were the Romanians from superior Dacia, there is no other means left to rise again but intellectual culture. August Treboniu Laurian was born on July 17, 1810, in the village of Fofeldea in Nocrich and died on February 25, 1881. He was a Transylvanian Romanian politician, historian, and linguist who played key roles in various significant events. Laurian was an active participant in the 1848 revolution and an organizer of the Romanian school, which aimed to promote education among Romanians. He was also one of the founding members of the Romanian Academy, a prestigious institution dedicated to promoting Romanian culture and language. As a prominent figure in the Latinist School, Laurian believed that Romanians are pure Romans whose history is a continuation of the Roman Empire's history. This ideology led him to write his book on the History of the Romanians, which began with the foundation of Rome in 753 BC and continued with the history of the Romanians using the Roman system, Ab urbe condita. Laurian supported the purification of the Romanian language by removing non-Latin elements and making it as close to Latin as possible. He collaborated with Ioan Massim on a two-volume Romanian language dictionary commissioned by the Romanian Academy between 1871 and 1876. The dictionary was stripped of non-Latin words, including neologisms, which were supposed to be eliminated from the language. The dictionary was written in an etymological spelling system, resulting in an artificial language that only vaguely resembled Romanian. This move provoked laughter and discredited the Latinist school. Despite this, Laurian's work had a significant impact on Romanian culture and language. A bronze bust of August Treboniu Laurian was created by Adrian Popescu and unveiled on September 17, 2010, to commemorate his 200th birthday. This object is part of Scan The World, a non-profit initiative that aims to create a digital archive of fully 3D printable sculptures, artworks, and landmarks from around the world. Scan The World is an open-source community effort led by MyMiniFactory, which allows individuals to contribute their own objects for scanning and sharing. If you have interesting items around you and would like to contribute, email stw@myminifactory.com to find out how you can help. This scanned object was processed using Agisoft PhotoScan.