He fought for the unification of the Romanian Principalities, writing "Hora Unirii" in 1856 and giving up his candidacy for the title of prince of Moldavia, in favor of Alexandru Ioan Cuza.

He moved to Paris in 1834, where he dabbled in chemistry, medicine, and law, but soon abandoned all in favor of what he called his "lifelong passion", literature.

Elena's chest illness aggravated in Paris, and after a brief stint in Italy, they both boarded a French ship to return home 25 April 1847.

He wrote a widely read poem urging the public to join the cause, "Către Români" (To Romanians), later renamed "Deșteptarea României" (Romania's Awakening).

He toured the Moldavian countryside, collecting, reworking, and arranging a vast array of Romanian folklore, which he published in two installments, in 1852 and 1853.

The poems included in these two enormously popular collections became the cornerstone of the emerging Romanian identity, especially the ballads "Miorița", "Toma Alimoș", "Mânăstirea Argeșului", and "Novac și Corbul."

Broadly revered in Romanian cultural circles, he oversaw the establishment of "România Literară", to which writers from both Moldavia and Wallachia contributed.

In 1856, he published in Mihail Kogălniceanu's newspaper, Steaua Dunării, the poem "Hora Unirii", which became the anthem of the unification movement.

He toured the West, pleading to some of his friends and acquaintances in Paris to acknowledge the newly formed nation and support its emergence in the turbulent Balkan area.

He continued to be a prolific writer, finishing a fantastic comedy, "Sânziana și Pepelea," (1881) and two dramas, "Fântâna Blanduziei" (1883) and "Ovidiu" (1884).

[10][11][12][13] The appearance of the literary stereotype of the "Polish Jew," or Ostjude, in Romanian literature was largely due to Vasile Alecsandri, the most important and most popular writer of the time.

The Jew was depicted with sidecurls, and caftan, he used characteristic jargon and was portrayed as having "typical" personality traits — he was an unscrupulous cheat, a profit–hungry usurer, an exploiter and "poisoner" of the peasant.