VICTOR TUFESCU’S CENTENARY


ACADEMICIAN VICTOR TUFESCU, AN OUTSTANDING PERSONALITY OF ROMANIAN GEOGRAPHY


Dan BĂLTEANU


Romanian Academy, Institute of Geography Victor Tufescu, a member of the Romanian Academy, is one of the


great figures of the 20th century who contributed to the making of modern Romanian Geography. His activity spans over six decades, coinciding with the foundation and developement of this science on a modern basis, in a period marked by contradictions and difficulties, by dramatic episodes. But Professor Tufescu succedeed in traversing it with dignity and moral stamina, overcoming the ups- and-downs of life (Bălteanu, 1999). Modern Romanian Geography, the science of the relationships between geospheres, set on the visionary principles of Simion Mehedinţi, had in Victor Tufescu an exceptional and devoted supporter. The Professor contributed to maintaining and promot- ing it, at a time when some would try to impose foreign concepts which, if ac- cepted, would have meant division and loss of identity for this research ob- ject.


Professor Tufescu’s career began in 1932 as preparatory, then assis-


tant at the Faculty of Sciences, University of Iaşi, first at the Palaeontology Section and next at the Geography Section chaired by Prof. Ion Anastasiu. The Professor’s research-work on landform and human settlements in the Dealul Mare-Hârlău region will be embodied in his PhD thesis. In 1935, he was the first to win the post of teacher at “Meşotă” High-school in Braşov, against 180 candidates competing for the post. In 1938-1939, he received a scholarship from the Romanian Academy, which allowed him to continue his studies in France, at the Sorbonne, under the supervision of Prof. Emm. De Martonne. His marriage to Liliana Dolinescu, a high-school teacher in Boto- şani, created the requisite family background for his further scientific activity. Between 1939 and 1941 Professor Tufescu activated at the Normal


School in Bucharest. After that date we find him a reader, next a professor at the Academy of Higher Commercial and Industrial Studies, named the Acad- emy of Economic Studies after 1946. Together with Prof. Vintilă Mihăilescu and other renowned geographers, they set up the Institute of Geographical Research in Romania and put out its “Revista geografică”, Victor Tufescu continuing as head of the Institute’s Physical Geography Section (1944-1950). Over the 1951-1955 period, the Professor was compelled to leave the


education system and in 1955 was arrested and jailed, being released eight 9


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