A trained classical singer and a graduate of Saint Vladimir (Shevchenko) University, he was one of the leading activists supporting ethnic Romanian emancipation in Bessarabia and beyond.

A native of Cotiujenii Mari, at the time part of Russia's Bessarabia Governorate, Simeon G. Murafa was from a family of Moldavian yeomen.

[4] In 1908 or 1909, Murafa, Madan, Ștefan Ciobanu and Daniel Ciugureanu established Deșteptarea ("Awakening") or Pământenia ("The Colony"), a Bessarabian Romanian students' circle in Kyiv.

"[5] Reputedly, after decades of Russification, Murafa was one of the select few Besarabian intellectuals who could decently express themselves in the Romanian vernacular, which was better preserved by the mass of the people.

[6] The group established direct but clandestine links with the Kingdom of Romania (which they regarded as their mother country), and circulated Romanian-language books.

[8] In May 1913, sponsored by the landowner Vasile Stroescu, Nicolae Alexandri and Murafa set up Cuvânt Moldovenesc, a nationalist newspaper.

[9] In its opening manifesto, the newspaper depicted Bessarabia as engulfed by "the darkness of ignorance", taking over the intellectual mission of enlightening the Romanian-speaking masses; the first issue also featured Murafa's educational essay, Cine-s moldovenii?

[16] As noted by historian Charles Upson Clark, the PNM demanded home rule with a Moldavian Legislative Assembly, the definitive end of Russification, and generally "a firm foundation for the civic and national liberties gained by the Revolution.

[21] In April, attended the PNM's "Great National Assembly" of Bessarabian soldiers in Odessa, and, in June, greeted the Romanian Volunteer Corps at Chișinău Railway Station.

[22] However, Murafa also had a stint in the eclectic "Romanian Nationalist-Revolutionary Party", founded by the anarchist Ilie Cătărău around a platform supporting a "Free Russia" and a "Greater Romania".

[23] On August 20, 1917, Simeon G. Murafa was attending a picnic at the Chișinău vineyard owned by engineer Andrei Constantin Hodorogea, when a mob of soldiers, which Halippa would later claim were Bolsheviks, stormed in.

[24] Another eyewitness account states places notes that Murafa and Hodorogea were murdered at bayonet by "three well-armed Russian soldiers", after having made efforts to appease them.

[5] Clark additionally notes that this killing of two "most conspicuous Moldavian leaders" was linked with the devastation of farms and businesses by peasants and Russian deserters, but also with a Bolshevik "campaign of terrorism".

[13][24][25][26] Following the December 1917 establishment of a breakaway Moldavian Democratic Republic, which eventually united with Romania, Murafa was openly designated a hero to the cause of unionism.

In May 1918, before its complete merger with Romania, the Republic set aside 5,000 rubles for a monument to be dedicated at Murafa's grave, a further 3,000 as aid for his widow, and a 900-ruble pension for his daughter.