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Nicolae Iorga (Romanian pronunciation: [niko'la.e 'jorga]; sometimes Neculai Iorga, Nicolas Jorga, Nicolai Jorga or Nicola Jorga, born Nicu N. Iorga; January 17, 1871 - November 27, 1940) was a Romanian historian, politician, literary critic, memoirist, poet and playwright. Co-founder (in 1910) of the Democratic Nationalist Party (PND), he served as a member of Parliament, President of the Deputies' Assembly and Senate, cabinet minister and briefly (1931-32) as Prime Minister. A child prodigy, polymath and polyglot, Iorga produced an unusually large body of scholarly works, consecrating his international reputation as a medievalist, Byzantinist, Latinist, Slavist, art historian and philosopher of history.

In 1888, Nicolae Iorga passed his entry examination for the University of Iasi Faculty of Letters, becoming eligible for a scholarship soon after. Upon the completion of his second term, he also received a special dispensation from the Kingdom of Romania's Education Ministry, and, as a result, applied for and passed his third term examinations, effectively graduating one year ahead of his class. Before the end of the year, he also passed his license examination magna cum laude, with a thesis on Greek literature, an achievement which consecrated his reputation inside both academia and the public sphere. Hailed as a "morning star" by the local press and deemed a "wonder of a man" by his teacher A. D. Xenopol, Iorga was honored by the faculty with a special banquet. Three academics (Xenopol, Nicolae Culianu, Ioan Caragiani) formally brought Iorga to the attention of the Education Ministry, proposing him for the state-sponsored program which allowed academic achievers to study abroad.  The interval witnessed Iorga's brief affiliation with Junimea, a literary club with conservative leanings, whose informal leader was literary and political theorist Titu Maiorescu. In 1890, literary critic Stefan Vargolici and cultural promoter Iacob Negruzzi published Iorga's essay on poet Veronica Micle in the Junimist tribune Convorbiri Literare. Having earlier attended the funeral of writer Ion Creanga, a dissident Junimist and Romanian literature classic, he took a public stand against the defamation of another such figure, the dramatist Ion Luca Caragiale, groundlessly accused of plagiarism by journalist Constantin Al. Ionescu-Caion. He expanded his contribution as an opinion journalist, publishing with some regularity in various local or national periodicals of various leanings, from the socialist Contemporanul and Era Noua to Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu's Revista Noua. This period saw his debut as a socialist poet (in Contemporanul) and critic (in both Lupta and Literatura si Stiinta).  Also in 1890, Iorga married Maria Tasu, whom he was to divorce in 1900. He had previously been in love with an Ecaterina C. Botez, but, after some hesitation, decided to marry into the family of Junimea man Vasile Tasu, much better situated in the social circles. Xenopol, who was Iorga's matchmaker, also tried to obtain for Iorga a teaching position at Iasi University. The attempt was opposed by other professors, on grounds of Iorga's youth and politics. Instead, Iorga was briefly a high school professor of Latin in the southern city of Ploiesti, following a public competition overseen by writer Alexandru Odobescu. The time he spent there allowed him to expand his circle of acquaintances and personal friends, meeting writers Caragiale and Alexandru Vlahuta, historians Hasdeu and Grigore Tocilescu, and Marxist theorist Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea.  Having received the scholarship early in the year, he made his first study trips to Italy (April and June 1890), and subsequently left for a longer stay in France, enlisting at the Ecole pratique des hautes etudes. He was a contributor for the Encyclopedie francaise, personally recommended there by Slavist Louis Leger. Reflecting back on this time, he stated: "I never had as much time at my disposal, as much freedom of spirit, as much joy of learning from those great figures of mankind ... than back then, in that summer of 1890". While preparing for his second diploma, Iorga also pursued his interest in philology, learning English, German, and rudiments of other Germanic languages. In 1892, he was in England and in Italy, researching historical sources for his French-language thesis on Philippe de Mezieres, a Frenchman in the Crusade of 1365. In tandem, he became a contributor to Revue Historique, a leading French academic journal.  Somewhat dissatisfied with French education, Iorga presented his dissertation and, in 1893, left for the German Empire, attempting to enlist in the University of Berlin's Ph.D. program. His working paper, on Thomas III of Saluzzo, was not received, because Iorga had not spent three years in training, as required. As an alternative, he gave formal pledge that the paper in question was entirely his own work, but his statement was invalidated by technicality: Iorga's work had been redacted by a more proficient speaker of German, whose intervention did not touch the substance of Iorga's research. The ensuing controversy led him to apply for a University of Leipzig Ph.D.: his text, once reviewed by a commission grouping three prominent German scholars (Adolf Birch-Hirschfeld, Karl Gotthard Lamprecht, Charles Wachsmuth), earned him the needed diploma in August. On July 25, Iorga had also received his Ecole pratique diploma for the earlier work on de Mezieres, following its review by Gaston Paris and Charles Bemont. He spent his time further investigating the historical sources, at archives in Berlin, Leipzig and Dresden. Between 1890 and the end of 1893, he had published three works: his debut in poetry (Poezii, "Poems"), the first volume of Schite din literatura romana ("Sketches on Romanian Literature", 1893; second volume 1894), and his Leipzig thesis, printed in Paris as Thomas III, marquis de Saluces. Etude historique et litteraire ("Thomas, Margrave of Saluzzo. Historical and Literary Study").  Living in poor conditions (as reported by visiting scholar Teohari Antonescu), the four-year engagement of his scholarship still applicable, Nicolae Iorga decided to spend his remaining time abroad, researching more city archives in Germany (Munich), Austria (Innsbruck) and Italy (Florence, Milan, Naples, Rome, Venice etc.). In this instance, his primordial focus was on historical figures from his Romanian homeland, the defunct Danubian Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia: the Moldavian Prince Peter the Lame, his son Stefanita, and Romania's national hero, the Wallachian Prince Michael the Brave. He also met, befriended and often collaborated with fellow historians from European countries other than Romania: the editors of Revue de l'Orient Latin, who first published studies Iorga later grouped in the six volumes of Notes et extraits ("Notices and Excerpts") and Frantz Funck-Brentano, who enlisted his parallel contribution for Revue Critique. Iorga's articles were also featured in two magazines for ethnic Romanian communities in Austria-Hungary: Familia and Vatra.  In 1913, Iorga was in London for an International Congress of History, presenting a proposal for a new approach to medievalism and a paper discussing the sociocultural effects of the fall of Constantinople on Moldavia and Wallachia. He was later in the Kingdom of Serbia, invited by the Belgrade Academy and presenting dissertations on Romania-Serbia relations and the Ottoman decline. Iorga was even called under arms in the Second Balkan War, during which Romania fought alongside Serbia and against the Kingdom of Bulgaria. The subsequent taking of Southern Dobruja, supported by Maiorescu and the Conservatives, was seen by Iorga as callous and imperialistic.  Iorga's interest in the Balkan crisis was illustrated by two of the forty books he put out that year: Istoria statelor balcanice ("The History of Balkan States") and Notele unui istoric cu privire la evenimentele din Balcani ("A Historian's Notes on the Balkan Events"). Noted among the others is the study focusing on the early 18th century reign of Wallachian Prince Constantin Brancoveanu (Viata si domnia lui Constantin voda Brancoveanu, "The Life and Rule of Prince Constantin Brancoveanu"). That same year, Iorga issued the first series of his Drum Drept monthly, later merged with the Samanatorist magazine Ramuri. Iorga managed to publish roughly as many new titles in 1914, the year when he received a Romanian Bene Merenti distinction, and inaugurated the international Institute of South-East European Studies or ISSEE (founded through his efforts), with a lecture on Albanian history.  Again invited to Italy, he spoke at the Ateneo Veneto on the relations between the Republic of Venice and the Balkans, and again about Settecento culture. His attention was focused on the Albanians and Arbereshe--Iorga soon discovered the oldest record of written Albanian, the 1462 Formula e pagezimit. In 1916, he founded the Bucharest-based academic journal Revista Istorica ("The Historical Review"), a Romanian equivalent for Historische Zeitschrift and The English Historical Review.
Nicolae Iorga