Dimitrie or Demetrius[1] Cantemir (Romanian pronunciation: [diˈmitri.e kanteˈmir] ⓘ; Russian: Дмитрий Кантемир, romanized: Dmitry Kantemir; 26 October 1673 – 21 August 1723), also known by other spellings, was a Moldavian prince, statesman, and man of letters.

His son Antioch, Russia's ambassador to Great Britain and France and a friend of Montesquieu and Voltaire, would become known as "the father of Russian poetry".

He is also known as Dimitri Kantemiroğlu in Turkish contexts, Dymitr Kantemir in Polish, and Dēmētrios Kantimērēs (Δημήτριος Καντιμήρης) in Greek.

Dimitrie was born in Silişteni, Moldavia (now Vaslui County, Romania) on 26 October 1673[1] to Constantin Cantemir and Ana Bantăș.

Between 1687 and 1710, Dimitrie spent most of his time as a hostage or envoy in Constantinople, living in the palace he owned, where he learned Turkish and studied Ottoman history at the Patriarchate's Greek Academy.

His elder daughter Maria Cantemir (1700–1754) so attracted Peter the Great that he allegedly planned to divorce his wife Catherine to be with her.

Dimitrie's younger daughter Smaragda (1720–1761), reckoned one of the great beauties of her time, was the wife of Prince Dmitriy Mikhailovich Golitsyn and a friend of the empress Elizabeth.

Well-versed in Oriental scholarship, his oeuvre is voluminous, diverse, and original, although some of his scientific writings contain unconfirmed theories or simple inaccuracies.

His name is among those who were considered to be the brightest minds of the world on a plaque at the Library of Sainte-Genevieve in Paris, next to those of Leibniz, Newton, Piron, and other great thinkers.

A few of Cantemir's roughly forty Ottoman compositions are still performed today as part of the Turkish repertoire, but his greatest service was in preserving 350 traditional instrumental pieces by publishing them in a musical notation he developed from the Ottoman Turkish alphabet in his work Edvar-i Musiki, offered as a present to Sultan Ahmed III in 1703 or 1704 and recently reprinted with modern explanations.

[22] In 1999, the Bezmara ensemble recorded Yitik Sesin Peşinde ("In Search of the Lost Sound") from the Cantemir transcriptions using period instruments.

[23] His compositions, those of his European contemporaries and Moldavian folk music of the period were explored on Cantemir (Golden Horn Records, 2000) performed by İhsan Özgen and the Lux Musica ensemble under Linda Burman-Hall's direction.