Siding with the moderate liberal current for most of his lifetime, he began his political career as a collaborator of Prince Mihail Sturdza, while serving as head of the Iași Theater and issuing several publications together with the poet Vasile Alecsandri and the activist Ion Ghica.

[7] In pages he dedicated to the influence exercised by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel on Romanian thought, Tudor Vianu noted that certain Hegelian-related principles were a common attribute of the Berlin faculty during Kogălniceanu's stay.

[3] During summer trips to the Pomeranian town of Heringsdorf, he met the novelist Willibald Alexis, whom he befriended, and who, as Kogălniceanu recalled, lectured him on the land reform carried out by Prussian King Frederick William III.

[18] In this context, Kogălniceanu and Negruzzi sought to Westernize the Moldavian public, with interest ranging as far as Romanian culinary tastes: the almanacs published by them featured gourmet-themed aphorisms and recipes meant to educate local folk about the refinement and richness of European cuisine.

[29] In 1843, Kogălniceanu gave a celebrated inaugural lecture on national history at the newly founded Academia Mihăileană in Iași, a speech which greatly influenced ethnic Romanian students at the University of Paris and the 1848 generation (see Cuvânt pentru deschiderea cursului de istorie națională).

[6] Having sold his personal library to Academia Mihăileană,[33] Kogălniceanu was in Paris and other Western European cities from 1845 to 1847, joining the Romanian student association (Societatea Studenților Români) that included Ghica, Bălcescu, and Rosetti and was presided over by the French poet Alphonse de Lamartine.

[6][38] Kogălniceanu was consequently appointed to various high level government positions, while continuing his cultural contributions and becoming the main figure of the loose grouping Partida Națională, which sought the merger of the two Danubian Principalities under a single administration.

[3] Ghica was prompted to complete the process of liberation by the fate of Dincă, an educated Roma cook who had murdered his French wife and then killed himself after being made aware that he was not going to be set free by his Cantacuzino masters.

[42] Kogălniceanu encouraged Nicolae Ionescu to issue the magazine L'Étoile de Danube in Brussels, as a French-language version of Steaua Dunării which would also serve to popularize Partida Națională's views.

[3][46] The final proposal, effectively imposing one law for all, universal conscription and an end to rank-based tax exemptions, was made by a commission which included Kogălniceanu and Vasile Mălinescu, and was passed by the Divan on October 29, 1857, with 73 out of 77 votes (the remaining 4 were all abstentions).

[6][47] In October 1858, he made a clear proposal regarding the unification, which, as he noted, carried the vote with only two opposing voices (Alecu Balș and Nectarie Hermeziu, the Orthodox vicar of Roman Bishopric), being publicly acclaimed by Ion Roată, the peasant representative for Putna County.

[54] Late in the same month, Catargiu was mysteriously assassinated on Mitropoliei Hill, on his way back from Filaret, where he had attended a festivity commemorating the Wallachian revolution (he was succeeded by Nicolae Kretzulescu, after the interim premiership of Apostol Arsachi).

[69] With Kogălniceanu's participation, the authoritarian regime established by Cuza succeeded in promulgating a series of reforms, notably introducing the Napoleonic code, public education, and state monopolies on alcohol and tobacco.

[75] Domnitor Cuza was ultimately ousted by a coalition of Conservatives and Liberals in February 1866; following a period of transition and maneuvers to avert international objections, a perpetually unified Principality of Romania was established under Carol of Hohenzollern, with the adoption of the 1866 Constitution.

[84] Even after Cuza left the country and settled in Baden, relations between him and Kogălniceanu remained respectful, but distant: in summer 1868, when both of them were visiting Vienna, they happened to meet, and, without exchanging words, raised their hats as a form of greeting.

The propaganda effort won support from across the floor: Junimea Conservatives (Titu Maiorescu, Theodor Rosetti, Ioan Slavici), National Liberals (D. Sturdza) and independents (Alexandru Odobescu) all signed up to the enterprise.

He supported a distinct legal regime, as a transition from Ottoman administration, and a period of rebuilding—in effect, a colonial rule, aiming for the assimilation of locals into the Romanian mainstream, but respectful of Dobrujan Islam.

[120] His intercession played a part in the ethnic policies: he is reported to have personally urged the Romanian pastoralists (Mocani) to abandon their traditional lifestyle and their Bessarabian homes, offering them the option of purchasing Northern Dobrujan land.

[124] In January 1880–1881, Kogălniceanu oversaw the first diplomatic contacts between Romania and Qing China, as an exchange of correspondence between the Romanian Embassy to France and Zeng Jize, the Chinese Ambassador to the United Kingdom.

[6][51] Nicolae Iorga, a major historian of the 20th century, celebrated Kogălniceanu as "the founder of modern Romanian culture, the thinker who has seen in clarity the free and complete Romania [...], the redeemer of peasants thrown into serfdom [a reference to corvées], the person understanding all the many, secretive, and indissoluble connections linking the life of a people to the moral quality and the energy of its soul".

[51] Kogălniceanu was a democratic and nationalist politician who combined liberalism with the conservative principles acquired during his education, taking inspiration from the policies of the Prussian statesmen Baron vom und zum Stein and Karl August von Hardenberg.

[132] At the same time, his connections within Freemasonry, mirroring the conviction and affiliation of most 1848 revolutionaries, were an important factor in ensuring the success of Romanian causes abroad, and arguably played a part in the election of Cuza, who was himself a member of the secretive organization.

[34] Inside the Romanian liberal faction, and in contrast to his moderation on other topics, he was among the very few to tie together modernization, democracy, and the need to improve the situation of peasants (other notable politicians to do so were Nicolae Bălcescu, who died in late 1852, and Rosetti, who advocated a strict adherence to majoritarianism).

[133] Kogălniceanu praised Bălcescu's manifestos and activism in favor of the peasantry, indicating that they formed a precedent for his own accomplishments, while deploring the Wallachian uprising's failure to advance a definitive land reform.

[136] During the 1930s, such attitudes, together with Kogălniceanu's involvement in peasant causes, were cited as a precedent by politicians of the fascist National Christian Party and Iron Guard, who, while promoting rural traditionalism, advocated restricting civil rights for the Jewish community.

[138] The more radical antisemite and National Liberal Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu expressed much criticism of this moderate stance (which he also believed was represented within the party by Rosetti and Ion Ghica), and he even claimed that Kogălniceanu was a secret "faithful" of the Talmud.

[142] To illustrate this view, he cited Kogălniceanu's Cuvânt pentru deschiderea cursului de istorie națională, which notably states: "In me you shall find a Romanian, but ever to the point where I would contribute in increasing Romanomania, that is to say the mania of calling ourselves Romans, a passion currently reigning foremost in Transylvania and among some of the writers in Wallachia.

"[142]Ibrăileanu additionally credited the Moldavian faction, Kogălniceanu included, with having helped introduce spoken Romanian into the literary language, at a time when both Ion Heliade Rădulescu and successors of the Transylvanian School made use of the dialect prevalent in Orthodox and Greek-Catholic religious culture.

[142] Writing more than half a century after the critic, historian Lucian Boia also noted that, while Kogălniceanu stressed national unity, his discourse tended to place emphasis on Moldavian particularities.

[149][151] While commenting on the differences between Moldavian and Wallachian literature, Paul Zarifopol gave a more reserved assessment of Kogălniceanu's position, arguing that the emphasis he had placed on "national taste" would occasionally result in acclaim for mediocre writers such as Alexandru Hrisoverghi.