Do you believe in ghouls and spirits? Do you believe that the presence of a tormented soul would linger around its former home for decades to come? If so, then the story of Iulia Hașdeu is one that might intrigue you.
Born in 1869, Iulia Hașdeu is the ghostly icon of Romania. Unlike Dracula, who’s based off Vlad Tepes, or some other paranormal garbage, Iulia was very much a real person. She was a poet and musician and at age two she was already learning French. By age 16, she was the first Romanian woman to be accepted into the Sorbonne. Besides that, she wrote a series of plays, poems and librettos, many of which can still be read today. While preparing her doctoral thesis, Hașdeu contracted tuberculosis and passed away under horrible circumstances.
This girl’s story has been absolutely milked as a paranormal money machine by the guys up in Campina and Arges and by her father, who, stricken with grief, created a shrine for his daughter. Much like Mickiewicz, who was discussed in the previous edition, she is another talented poet who had life purposely sucked out of her by demanding admirers and family. The sole difference between these two spectacular individuals is that she was just a child. No matter her talent and charm, no child ever deserves the exploitation that Iulia endured during her short 18 years of life.
Fun fact: Iulia was a Bonapartist(Napoleon fangirl) and groupie of Victor Hugo, suffering tremendously at his passing in 1885.
Tragedie și paranormal- The story of her Death and Hauntings
In 1887, Iulia was diagnosed with severe tuberculosis, which would soon prove fatal. She returns to Romania to work on her poetry but soon is taken back to Paris, in a dire state. Transported to Switzerland by her parents, desperate to help their daughter regain her health, her condition worsens. Iulia slowly became more and more miserable as the weeks passed. Soon, in 1888, at 18 years of age, she died a horrible death filled with agony in Bucharest.
After her death, her father went off the rails. He was said to have felt his daughter urging him to write and build her a castle, which is now the Hașdeu Castle in Campina.
“Six months had passed since my daughter’s death. It was in March.... Without realising it, my hand reached for a pencil and put its point to paper. I started feeling short, deep taps in my left temple, just as if I’d implanted a telegraphic device into it. Suddenly, my hand started moving restlessly. About five seconds, at the most. When my arm stopped and the pencil dropped out of my fingers, I felt awakened from sleep, although I was sure I had not fallen asleep at all. I Took a look at the paper and read there very clearly: “Je suis heureuse; je t’aime; nous nous reverrons; cela doit te suffire.”
-B.P HASDEU
There is an eerie tale that he built a room to talk to her and that she would sometimes reply, bringing with her the scent of death and madness while corrupting her father’s mind(who many now deemed nuts). Some say that at night, her piano is heard echoing across the surroundings and that she sits and wails inside the castle. This is nothing but a myth, most obviously, but there is always some validity in these stories. After all, there is a bitter taste left on my tongue when talking about the death of such a young woman, a brilliant mind who was mysteriously afflicted with an illness and on such short notice died. It’s so haunting to even think that such a youthful soul was robbed of the lone thing a person truly necessitates; their life. You may choose to believe or treat this haunting as a legend. You may choose to view the castle as a resting place, a funereal labyrinth, a sepulchre whose mystery is never to be uncovered or the mourning place of a grieving father, but no matter what, care.
Why should you care?
I guess a ghost story isn’t good enough. Fine. Iulia was the first Romanian woman to attend the Sorbonne university, which back when she lived was the equivalent of Harvard or Oxford. Certainly, suppose you’re a girl, especially Romanian, reading this. In that case, it would be of great importance that this woman, at merely 16, was the first woman of this country to get accepted into the the most prestigious uni of the time. If this isn’t a representation of a strong woman then what is? She was the front for many strong women to come and enrol in university and most certainly and absolutely led the way for entire generations of ladies to follow her lead and create some of the most important works that the world may ever witness.
In conclusion, paranormal or not, Iulia was a child that died, and the only truly terrifying and abhorrent thing that her story tells us, is that she never got to live her life, fulfil her dreams and show her true potential.
If you care more about this topic you can ask me directly or reference- Manolache, Constantin- Scânteietoarea viaţă a Iuliei Hasdeu (very compelling and packed with cool facts!)
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