Rallou Karatza-Argyropoulos (also rendered as Karatzis, Caradja and Karadja; ; , commonly , "Lady Ralu"; ; 179916 April 1870) was a Phanariote Greek actress, theater director, and dramaturge, also noted as a participant in the Greek War of Independence. She was the second daughter of John Caradja, the Prince of Wallachia (reigned 1812–1818), and thus a prominent member of the Caradja family. She was also the wife of John's trusted courtier Georgios Argyropoulos, which also made her titular consort to the Great Banship of Oltenia in 1812–1813. While still a teenager, she was an arbiter of fashion and a promoter of Westernization, as well as, allegedly, a serial seducer. In 1816 or 1818, Rallou convinced her father to finance her artistic projects, and founded the first court theater, at Cișmeaua Roșie of Bucharest. This project, also involving figures such as Costache Aristia and Iordache Slătineanu, made her a participant in the Modern Greek Enlightenment, and supposedly the first Greek-language director. Her pivotal role in both Modern Greek and Romanian theater is widely acknowledged, clashing with the more controversial aspects of her youth—including her endorsement of her father's corruption and her own acts of despotism, such as a sartorial ban on the color white.
A subject of the Ottoman Empire, Rallou was won over by Greek nationalism, to the point of advocating emancipation from Ottoman rule. Her activity at the theater reflected her sympathy for, and possible initiation by, the Filiki Eteria. Her and her father's cultivation of the Eterists was abruptly ended in late 1818, when the threat of an Ottoman backlash forced the Caradjas out of Wallachia. They lived abroad in Restoration-era Switzerland, and later in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany; while in exile, Rallou networked with Philhellenes (including Mary Shelley), and supported Republican Greece. From 1830, she and other Caradajas resided in the newly proclaimed Greek state, and then in its successor kingdom, where Prince John died in 1844. To Wallachians, she remained an absentee landlady, quarreling with her tenants, nominally including all citizens of Ploiești.
Heading cultural clubs alongside her sister Roxani Soutzos and her friend Aristia, Princess Karatza penned Greek translations from Madame de Lambert and John Gillies. She followed her husband into the Kingdom of Saxony, dying there at the age of 70 or 71. She was by then consecrated as a literary character, in works by Panagiotis Soutsos and Nicolae Filimon. Romanian literature continued to focus on her life as a feminist precursor or a generally exotic figure, with her personality explored in novels by Bucura Dumbravă, Mateiu Caragiale, and Petru Manoliu. Episodes of her biography were also fictionalized in the 1970s with a children's play by Alexandru Mitru and two films by Dinu Cocea.
Biography Early life and Bucharest princess Rallou was born in 1799 at Istanbul, capital of the Ottoman Empire, as the second of three daughters from John's marriage to Eleni Caradja; the latter was from a Phanariote banking family, the Skanavis.Bucur, p. 202; Gane, pp. 247, 284; Popa, p. 32 Historian Nicolae Iorga sees the Caradjas as having a distant "Asiatic origin", and traces the Skanavi lineage to Chios.Iorga (1913), pp. 190–191 The couple's first child was daughter Roxani or Roxandra, born in 1783, who married Michael Soutzos in 1812,N. L. Korsakova, V. V. Noskov, "Список дипломатического корпуса в С. Петербурге. 21 января 1837", in Vremennik Pushkinskoy Komissii, Vol. 33, 2019, pp. 53–54 while the youngest, Smaragda, married Spyridon Demetrios Mavrogenis; her two brothers were Georgios and Konstantinos (the latter was born "around 1799").Rizo-Rangabé, pp. 40–41, 82–84, 132–133. See also Gane, pp. 284, 297, 341 Through her father, Rallou was the great-granddaughter of John II Mavrocordatos, who served as Phanariote Prince of Moldavia in the 1740s.Rizo-Rangabé, pp. 39, 73, 74. See also Karadja & Soutsos, p. 237 This lineage also made her a very distant descendant of a 15th-century Moldavian ruler, Stephen the Great.Karadja & Soutsos, p. 237 Around the time of Rallou's birth, John Caradja was emerging as a trusted diplomat of the Sublime Porte, visiting Wallachia to negotiate a settlement with the Habsburg monarchy, which ended the preceding war, and traveling as far as the Kingdom of Prussia.Nicolae Iorga, Acte și fragmente cu privire la istoria românilor, adunate din depozitele de manuscrise ale Apusului. Volumul 2: Extracte din corespondența ambasadorilor prusieni la Constantinopol și Petersburg cu privire la Țerile Romîne, pp. 308, 336. Bucharest: Imprimeria Statului, 1896 Rallou received a classical education, being especially versed in music and Greek literature.Gane, p. 292 According to literary historian Ioan-Nicolae Popa, she could speak Greek, French, German and Ottoman Turkish;Popa, p. 32 Lady Morgan, who met Rallou in March 1819, contrarily reports that she and her sisters had only mastered Greek.Sydney, Lady Morgan, An Odd Volume, Extracted from an Autobiography, p. 321. London: Richard Bentley, 1859
Caradja first served as Grand Dragoman between 19 October and 18 November 1808, just as Sultan Mahmud II was consolidating power,Karadja & Soutsos, pp. 237–238 returning for a second (and short) stint in 1812.Rizo-Rangabé, p. 40 Mahmud finally installed him on the Wallachian throne in August 1812.Popa, p. 31; Rizo-Rangabé, p. 40 The new prince was despotic in his application of justice, and sometimes involved his daughter in the proceedings, placing her above the native boyardom. In February 1813, Frenchman Auguste de Lagarde noted that Caradja "[broke] his flail on a boyar of the court—a one-eyed man who stood accused of having insulted Princess Rallou".Bucur, p. 164. See also Gane, p. 295 The young princess married Georgios (also known as Gheorghe or Iordache) Argyropoulos, who had served her father in various court offices. He was the country's Caimacam (Regent), between Cardja's investiture on 27 August 1812Popa, p. 31. See also Rizo-Rangabé, p. 40, which has "29 August" and 22 October, the date of his actual ascent to power.Arnold Winckler, "Inceputul domniei lui Vodă Caragea. După actele Archivelor Statului din Viena", in Revista Istorică, Vol. X, Issues 1–3, January–March 1924, p. 3
According to historian Paul Cernovodeanu, by May 1813 the couple were living in Craiova, with Argyropoulos serving as the Great Ban of Oltenia. This identification is based on a diary kept by British surgeon William Wittman, who visited the city and met its "Greek chief", as well as his "very beautiful" and scantly clad wife.Cernovodeanu, pp. 667, 672 Wittman describes the Ban (or Caimacam) as a cultured polyglot, noting that he was carrying out archeological digs around Caracal.Cernovodeanu, p. 667 Official Wallachian records for December 1812 have Argyropulous as a "former Great Ban" (bivvel ban) and Dumitrache Racoviță as a titular Caimacam of Oltenia.Filitti, pp. 209, 216 On 13 January 1813, Argyropoulos applied his Caimacams seal, comprising the symbols of all Oltenian counties, to one of his resolutions.Constantin Moisil, "Studii de sigilografie românească", in Revista Arhivelor, Issue 4, 1927, p. 148 A successor, the non-Greek Radu Golescu, only took over in June of that year.Filitti, p. 216
Theatrical historian Ioan Massoff reports rumors of Rallou's continued sexual promiscuity, and notes that she had given birth to several babies that she then abandoned in front of Bucharest churches, with her family's approval.Ioan Massoff, "Domnița Ralu dela 'Cișmeaua Roșie', prima snoabă a Bucureștilor", in Rampa, 25 December 1937, p. 6 In an 1822 letter, Prussian diplomat Ludwig Kreuchely von Schwerdtberg alleges that Prince Caradja "had a child by his own daughter, who is still alive" (de sa propre fille eut un enfant, qui vit encore); the claim is seen by Iorga as a calumny, possibly hinting at Rallou.Nicolae Iorga, Documente privitóre la Istoria Românilor, culese de Eudoxiu de Hurmuzaki. Volumul X: 1763—1844, p. 134. Bucharest: I. V. Socecŭ, 1897 Rallou was known to have covered up her father's spoils system, when, in February 1815, she bought Conțești village from Caradja loyalist Ioan Hagi Moscu, in exchange for 115 thousand thaler, only to sell it back in August for a much smaller sum.Vintilă-Ghițulescu, p. 83 The princess had her own retinue, which included boyaress Sultana Gălășescu. According to a popular legend (partly validated by scholars M. Chopin and Abdolonyme Ubicini)Chopin & Ubicini, p. 116 Sultana used her influence at the court to rescue the hajduk Iancu Jianu from a death sentence, already pronounced by Prince John, by agreeing to marry him.Ioan Scurtu, "Un roman haiducesc", in Sămănătorul, Vol. VII, Issue 30, July 1908, p. 703
The princess was also personally involved in the work of Westernization that her father began to tolerate. She approved of local Prussians, who introduced her and others at the court to their lager, and who flew a hot air balloon from Dealul Spirii in June 1818.Ioan Vasile Buiu, "1873: primele ascensiuni aerostatice, cu om la bord, în București", in București. Materiale de Istorie și Muzeografie, Vol. XX, 2006, pp. 128–129 In contrast to accounts which date her first contribution to theater to 1812 (or even before),Tsigkou-Giannakopoulou, p. 218 Hellenist Ariadna Camariano-Cioran argues that Princess Karatza only began her project in 1817, in a modest way—by improvising plays in her private quarters, to an audience of several boyars.Camariano-Cioran, p. 1579. See also Bucur, p. 17 According to scholar Walter Puchner, the accounts actually refer to Rallou's work with the "Greek amateur stage at the 'Authentic Academy'"Puchner, pp. 284–285 (namely, the Princely Academy of Bucharest, whose trustees included her husband the Ban).Radu Economu, "1818, București: în Divanul țării. Pledoarie pentru învățămîntul românesc", in Magazin Istoric, February 1986, p. 14 That group had begun to stage adaptations of Homer during 1816, with the princess taking over as director in spring–autumn 1817. She organized a new troupe, whose star pupils included Costache Aristia; it moved to a new stage at the princely complex, and had a repertoire comprising adaptions from Euripides, Longus, Sophocles, as well as Vittorio Alfieri and Voltaire.Gane, pp. 294–295; Puchner, pp. 284–285
Cișmeaua Roșie Massoff proposes that Rallou was spurred on developments in French theater, and specifically the Comédie-Française; she may also have been familiarized with the status of theatrical life in the Austrian Empire, through her friendly contacts with Friedrich von Gentz (personal secretary of the Austrian Chancellor, Klemens von Metternich). Prince John reportedly appeared to give personal encouragement, being present for at least one play in which his daughter performed, "disguised as a tragic Muse."Eugen Lovinescu, "Cronica dramatică. Sub peristilul Teatrului Național", in Convorbiri Literare, Vol. XLVI, Issue 9, September 1912, p. 1076 Historian Yiannis Sideris views her as the first-ever director in the history of Modern Greek theater; she also contributed directly on the Greek translation of the plays.Tsigkou-Giannakopoulou, pp. 217–218 According to various reports, Rallou also organized musical parties, which included what may have been the first renditions of Ludwig van Beethoven in Wallachia (played on Bucharest's only piano). The account, rendered in unclear sources, may be read as an indication that Rallou herself played the Appassionata. This is placed in doubt by scholar George D. Florescu, who argues that, though a "good musician", Rallou would have been incapable of such a major feat. He proposes that the performer was a foreign guest of hers, whose name remains unrecorded.Florescu, p. 380