For the Romanian politician, see Gheorghe Ştefan (politician)

Gheorghe Stefan (politician)

Gheorghe Ştefan is a Romanian politician and mayor of Piatra Neamţ and owner of FC Ceahlăul Piatra Neamţ. He is currently a member of the Democratic Liberal Party....

Gheorghe Ştefan (seldom referred to as Burduja; d. 1668 in Szczecin

Szczecin

Szczecin , is the capital city of the West Pomeranian Voivodeship in Poland. It is the country's seventh-largest city and the largest seaport in Poland on the Baltic Sea. As of June 2009 the population was 406,427....

) was Voivode (Prince) of Moldavia

Moldavia

Moldavia is a geographic and historical region and former principality in Eastern Europe, corresponding to the territory between the Eastern Carpathians and the Dniester river...

 between April 13 and May 8, 1653, and again from July 16, 1653 to March 13, 1658; he was the son of boyar

Boyar

A boyar, or bolyar , was a member of the highest rank of the feudal Moscovian, Kievan Rus'ian, Bulgarian, Wallachian, and Moldavian aristocracies, second only to the ruling princes , from the 10th century through the 17th century....

 Dumitraşcu Ceaur; Gheorghe Ştefan was Chancellor

Chancellor

Chancellor is the title of various official positions in the governments of many nations. The original chancellors were the Cancellarii of Roman courts of justice—ushers who sat at the cancelli or lattice work screens of a basilica or law court, which separated the judge and counsel from the...

 (logofăt) during the reign of Vasile Lupu

Vasile Lupu

Vasile Lupu was a Moldavian Voivode between 1634 and 1653. Vasile Coci surnamed "the wolf" who ruled as Prince of Moldavia had secured the Moldavian throne in 1634 after a series of complicated intrigues and managed to hold it for twenty years. Vasile was of Albanian origin and Greek education...

.

Biography

Citing Vasile's reliance on his Greek

Greeks

The Greeks, also known as the Hellenes , are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighboring regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world....

 and Levant

Levant

The Levant or ) is the geographic region and culture zone of the "eastern Mediterranean littoral between Anatolia and Egypt" . The Levant includes most of modern Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian territories, and sometimes parts of Turkey and Iraq, and corresponds roughly to the...

ine retinue, as well as an alleged dishonoring of his wife by the Prince, he allied himself with Wallachia

Wallachia

Wallachia or Walachia is a historical and geographical region of Romania. It is situated north of the Danube and south of the Southern Carpathians...

n Prince Matei Basarab

Matei Basarab

Matei Basarab was a Wallachian Voivode between 1632 and 1654.-Reign:Much of Matei's reign was spent fighting off incursions from Moldavia, which he successfully accomplished in 1637, 1639, and 1653 - see Battle of Finta...

 and Transylvania

Transylvania

Transylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term sometimes encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical...

n ruler George II Rákóczi

George II Rákóczi

György Rákóczi II , a Transylvanian Hungarian ruler, was the eldest son of George I and Susanna Lorantffy....

. He managed to expel Vasile Lupu, but the latter was helped to regain his position by Bohdan Khmelnytsky

Bohdan Khmelnytsky

Bohdan Zynoviy Mykhailovych Khmelnytsky was a hetman of the Zaporozhian Cossack Hetmanate of Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth . He led an uprising against the Commonwealth and its magnates which resulted in the creation of a Cossack state...

's force (under the command of the Hetman

Hetman

Hetman was the title of the second-highest military commander in 15th- to 18th-century Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which together, from 1569 to 1795, comprised the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, or Rzeczpospolita....

's son Tymofiy

Tymofiy Khmelnytsky

Tymofiy Bohdanovych Khmelnytsky or Tymish Khmelnytsky was the eldest son of Cossack hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky....

/Tymish), sent to Moldavia to depose him. Tymish and Lupu followed him to Wallachia, but their armies were crushed by Matei Basarab in the Battle of Finta

Battle of Finta

The Battle of Finta was a confrontation between Matei Basarab's Wallachian army and a combined Moldo-Cossack force under Vasile Lupu and Tymofiy Khmelnytsky...

. Gheorghe Ştefan regained Iaşi

Iasi

Iași is the second most populous city and a municipality in Romania. Located in the historical Moldavia region, Iași has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Romanian social, cultural, academic and artistic life...

 and remained on the throne, making sure that the Ottoman

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

 power was appeased - he bought his power in Istanbul

Istanbul

Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...

, having to increase taxes in order to cover the expenses, and pay for the maintenance of his large mercenary force.

The Turks grew weary of Gheorghe Ştefan's natural alliance with Transylvania and Wallachia (cemented in 1655 by the help he offered to Constantin Şerban

Constantin Serban

Constantin Şerban was Prince of Wallachia between 1654 and 1658, illegitimate son to Radu Şerban .-Reign:...

 in crushing the rebellion of the seimeni

Seimeni

Seimeni designates the group of flintlock-armed infantry mercenaries charged with guarding the hospodar and his Court in 17th and 18th century Wallachia and Moldavia. They were mostly of Serb and other Balkan origin....

in Bucharest

Bucharest

Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River....

), in which they saw the seeds of emancipation. The Sultan

Ottoman Dynasty

The Ottoman Dynasty ruled the Ottoman Empire from 1299 to 1922, beginning with Osman I , though the dynasty was not proclaimed until Orhan Bey declared himself sultan...

 Mehmed Dördüncü

Mehmed IV

Mehmed IV Modern Turkish Mehmet was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1648 to 1687...

 was irritated further by the active part Moldavia played in Polish

Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was a dualistic state of Poland and Lithuania ruled by a common monarch. It was the largest and one of the most populous countries of 16th- and 17th‑century Europe with some and a multi-ethnic population of 11 million at its peak in the early 17th century...

 matters during The Deluge

The Deluge (Polish history)

The term Deluge denotes a series of mid-17th century campaigns in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. In a wider sense it applies to the period between the Khmelnytsky Uprising of 1648 and the Truce of Andrusovo in 1667, thus comprising the Polish–Lithuanian theaters of the Russo-Polish and...

, in the same camp as Sweden

Swedish Empire

The Swedish Empire refers to the Kingdom of Sweden between 1561 and 1721 . During this time, Sweden was one of the great European powers. In Swedish, the period is called Stormaktstiden, literally meaning "the Great Power Era"...

, the Cossack Hetmanate

Cossack Hetmanate

The Hetmanate or Zaporizhian Host was the Ruthenian Cossack state in the Central Ukraine between 1649 and 1782.The Hetmanate was founded by first Ukrainian hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky during the Khmelnytsky Uprising . In 1654 it pledged its allegiance to Muscovy during the Council of Pereyaslav,...

, Brandenburg

Brandenburg

Brandenburg is one of the sixteen federal-states of Germany. It lies in the east of the country and is one of the new federal states that were re-created in 1990 upon the reunification of the former West Germany and East Germany. The capital is Potsdam...

 and Wallachia. Mehmed understood this to be a step towards the challenge of his own rule: in 1658, he deposed all three subject rulers (Rákóczi, Gheorghe Ştefan, Constantin Şerban), bringing Gheorghe I Ghica as replacement in Iaşi. All three decided to resist, but Gheorghe Ştefan was defeated at Strunga (Iaşi County

Iasi County

Iași is a county of Romania, in Moldavia, with the administrative seat at Iași.-Demographics:As of 1 July 2007, Iași County had a population of 825,100, making it the second most populous county in Romania after Bucharest, with a population density of 150/km².*Romanians - 98.1%*Roma -...

), being discarded from the alliance in favor of Mihnea III of Wallachia.

The Prince wandered through Poland and Habsburg

Habsburg

The House of Habsburg , also found as Hapsburg, and also known as House of Austria is one of the most important royal houses of Europe and is best known for being an origin of all of the formally elected Holy Roman Emperors between 1438 and 1740, as well as rulers of the Austrian Empire and...

 lands (1662), Brandenburg, Muscovy and Sweden (1665), seeking to find backing for his return. Severely ill and bankrupt, he ended his life in Pomerania

Pomerania

Pomerania is a historical region on the south shore of the Baltic Sea. Divided between Germany and Poland, it stretches roughly from the Recknitz River near Stralsund in the West, via the Oder River delta near Szczecin, to the mouth of the Vistula River near Gdańsk in the East...

. His remains were brought back by his wife, and are thought to be buried at Caşin

Casin

Caşin is a commune in Bacău County, Romania. It is composed of two villages, Caşin and Curiţa....

 Monastery.