Dragoş

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Dragoş I in a 19th century rendition.

Dragoş (Drágfi of Béltek) was a Maramureş Voivode ruling over the lands of what was to become Moldavia (between 1351 and 1353). He left Maramureş by orders from the Hungarian King Louis I, in order to establish a defense line against the Golden Horde. He was succeeded by his son, Sas (Szász or Sas of Béltek) (ruled 1354-1358). Sas was then succeeded by his own son, Balc in 1359, but managed to rule the country for only one year before being deposed by another voivode from Maramureş, Bogdan. The direct bloodline of Dragoş in the Moldavian rulership ended there.

[edit] Legends

A Moldavian legend recounts Dragoş' founding of Moldavia as the result of an aurochs (or wisent) hunt, during which Molda, a female hound of his, was mortally wounded. In its remembrance, Dragoş named the river Moldova - the name was to be extended to the country itself at a latter date. This version is present in the works of Wallachian chronicler Radu Popescu and the Moldavian Prince Dimitrie Cantemir (namely, his Descriptio Moldaviae). The Moldavian coat of arms, which depicts an aurochs, relates to this legend.

Other records of the legend hold certain differences: while some indicate that Dragoş hunted alone, Grigore Ureche's account (which is also the most detailed) says that "Dragoş of Cuhea" (in Maramureş), a man "of royal origins" was accompanied by 300 men who would later be the founders of the village of Boureni (from bour, meaning "aurochs"), the first village in the Principality.

The accuracy of the founding (descălecat - literally, "dismounting") story has been disputed ever since the early 1700s (Cantemir). In the late 1800s, Dimitrie Onciul argued that the "descălecat" was a myth attempting to explain the origin of aurochs depicted in the Moldavian coat-of-arms (as present today in Romanian and Moldovan heraldry).

[edit] Legacy

Legend has Dragoş as the founder of the city of Vatra Dornei, named in memory of a beautiful shepherdess whom he would have met there.
A wooden church at Volovăţ (5 km away from Rădăuţi) was raised by Dragoş in 1346; it was restored and moved to Putna in 1468 by Stephen the Great.