[9] Born in Piatra Neamț, Urechia was the son of Alexandru Popovici, a member of the boyar class in Moldavia and a titular culcer; his mother, Eufrosina (or Euphrosina) née Manoliu.

The plot was loosely based on Uncle Tom's Cabin, by the American abolitionist writer Harriet Beecher Stowe, and was adapted to the realities of Romani slavery in Moldavia.

[9] In 1859–1860, as the political union was being effected under the rule of Alexander John Cuza as Domnitor, V. A. Urechia briefly served as Moldavia's Minister of Religious Affairs in the Kogălniceanu administration.

[7] He was still involved in building connections with France while pursuing his interest in ethnography, and joined the Paris-based Société d'Ethnographie, collaborating closely with its chairman Léon de Rosny [fr].

[6] That year, he published two books: Femeia română, dupre istorie și poesie ("The Romanian Woman in History and Poetry") and Balul mortului ("The Dead Man's Ball").

[7] He was in Spain from spring 1867 to autumn 1868, perfecting his knowledge of Castilian and carrying out an extended research into local archives,[9] being received as corresponding member of the Royal Spanish Academy (2 April 1868).

Although usually adverse to other liberal factions, including the group formed around historian Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu and Nicolae Ionescu's Fracțiunea liberă și independentă, he united with them in condemning Junimea's views and cultural guidelines.

"[18] In its first issue, it hosted Urechia's study on 17th century Moldavian chronicler Miron Costin and his writings, as well as historical pieces by Gheorghe Sion and Pantazi Ghica, all of which were soon after criticized by Maiorescu in his essay Beția de cuvinte ("Inebriation with Words").

[25] While reviewing and reshuffling the Ministry, Urechia dismissed the socialist and atheist activist Ioan Nădejde [ro] from his position as teacher,[26] and played a part in the decision to curb the spread of socialism among the faculty of Iași University.

[6] By 1885, he also made his peace with Junimea, which was generally offering its support to the newly founded Conservative Party, and became a collaborator of its mouthpiece Convorbiri Literare, contributing essays and stories until 1892.

Șăineanu, who, like most other members of the Jewish community, was not legally emancipated, had been assigned to a Faculty of Letters position by Titu Maiorescu, at the time Education Minister in a Conservative Party cabinet.

Although it won support from both Conservative Premier Petre P. Carp and the Chamber, Urechia again spoke out against enfranchise in the Senate, and, largely as a result of this appeal, a majority of his colleagues voted with him on both occasions.

[9] Attending the October 1899 International Congress of Orientalists in Rome, he organized a Pan-Latinist festivity centered on Trajan's Column, with the participation of Luigi Pelloux cabinet ministers and the Transylvanian peasant activist Badea Cârțan.

Although the ceremony enjoyed popularity and coverage in the press, Urechia and his Cultural League were frustrated by lack of funds in their attempt to organize a living exhibit of Romanian customs.

[6] Reflecting on the period, modern-day historian Lucian Boia argues that, while Urechia stood above all his pro-liberal academic colleagues in respect to his "industriousness", they all lacked scientific competence.

His Coliba Măriucăi, one of the first novels in Romanian literature to explore social problems from a critical perspective, and written just as slavery was being outlawed in Moldavia, he expresses sympathy for the persecuted Romani community.

[5] In contrast with this approach, the statements made by Urechia in his conflict with Lazăr Șăineanu show an antisemitic side to his Romanianism, which academic Michael Shafir rates as "cultural" and "economic" rather than "racial".

[24] While debating Șăineanu's status in academia, Urechia claimed: "A person foreign to our nation's fiber could never awaken in the mind and heart of the young generation the image of our past [...].

[37] In 1895, during the final Senate vote on Șăineanu's naturalization, Urechia gave an applauded speech in which he likened the linguist with the Trojan Horse, urging his fellow parliamentarians not to allow "a foreigner into the Romanian citadel".

[37] As part of their Romantic reaction against the Junimist call for professionalization, controlled modernization and Westernization, the Revista Contimporană group sought to portray the liberal approach as motivated by historical precedence.

[41] Maiorescu replied to his adversaries in Beția de cuvinte, where he emphasized his group's overall rejection and occasional derision of traditional Romanian literature, and commented that both the model and its defenders had produced a characteristically prolix style.

[22][43] In what Lucian Boia deems "perhaps [his] most successful page", Maiorescu ridiculed Urechia's claim that 18th-century Wallachian poet Ienăchiță Văcărescu was superior to Germany's Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

[17] While he criticizes Urechia's views on history, literary historian Zigu Ornea believes that he was justified in opposing Junimist "exclusivism", especially when rejecting Maiorescu's theory that the state needed to redesign its educational system by closing down universities and building more primary schools.

[48] An unsigned article published the conservative newspaper Timpul in 1877, believed by Ornea to be the work of Maiorescu, accuses V. A. Urechia, Xenofon Gheorghiu, Nicolae Ionescu, Ștefan Șendrea, Andrei Vizanti [ro] and others of being inactive academics and corrupt public figures.

Rumors also had it that the two other Wirth sisters, Carlotta, who was Queen Elisabeth's music tutor, and Emilia, wife of Romanian Army General Staff Chief Nicolae Dona [ro], were also V. A. Urechia's lovers.

[34] According to the 1995 Cambridge Guide to Theatre, Urechia was "most successful as an author of historical melodramas", but, like his contemporaries George Bengescu-Dabija, Haralamb Lecca, Ronetti Roman and Grigore Ventura [ro], is "no longer in fashion.

[51] Partly building on the observations made by literary critic Alexandru George [ro], Ornea notes that, for all his "real inadequacies", Urechia "was but moreover became incontestably superior to many members of [Junimea] who were much amused when reading Maiorescu's admirable lampoon.

"[54] After World War I, Alceu Urechia issued protests against the intellectual establishment, who, he argued, had obscured his father's contribution to the historical process whereby Greater Romania had been created.

[6] Historian Nicolae Iorga, who took over chairmanship of the Cultural League in 1932, paid tribute to his predecessor, referring to his "unbound wish to be of service in every area and his great talent to win over by means of an appealing form of vanity".

"[6] In 1878, to mark his presence at the International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences, the Société d'Ethnographie presented Urechia with a bust in his likeness, sculpted by Wladimir Hegel [ro].