Cantemir Institute

The Cantemir Institute (CI) is a recently established centre of research at the Faculty of History, University of Oxford, which focuses on the interdisciplinary study of Central and Eastern Europe in its wider European, Eurasian, Mediterranean, and global contexts. The creation of the institute has been made possible through a generous donation from the Berendel Foundation, London. The Cantemir Institute aims to reflect critically on the legacy of intercultural humanism bestowed by two humanist princes: Demetrius Cantemir (1673-1723), the ruling prince of Moldavia (1693; 1710-11), and his son Antiochus (1709-1744), Russia's ambassador to London and Paris (1731-1744). These distinguished polymaths were steeped in the intellectual culture of both Eastern and Western Europe and knowledgeable about the Ottoman and the Russian empires.