He was thus honorary president of the National Moldavian Party shortly after the February Revolution but, with Vladimir Herța, drifted away from the core of the movement to set up his own aristocratic branch.

[7] The couple also had four daughters, married off to aristocrats of Russian, Greek, or Polish Bessarabian descent: Ana Kazimir, Maria Druganov, Elena Martos, and Ecaterina Șumanski.

[4][14] Though it is known that the latter institution awarded him a doctorate of law,[15] he remained unusually discreet about his youth, his studies, and their exact dating (in one rare exception to this rule, he informed his friends that he had been lodging in Berlin during 1866).

[27] As noted by historian Iurie Colesnic, Stroescu and Nicolae Ștefan Casso stood among those boyars who reverted Russification or Moldovenism, "neutralizing the influence" of pro-imperial adversaries such as Alexander N.

[28] Stroescu built of refurbished several schools in Bessarabia, founded hospitals in his native village and in Brătușeni, and became ktitor of Bessarabian Orthodox churches in Trinca, Pociumbăuți, Șofrîncani, and Zăicani.

[10] His charity work continued to have a profound effect among the Romanian communities of Transylvania, in Austria-Hungary, where Stroescu notably founded the boarding house serving the Diocese of Arad, as well as "tens of churches, schools and hospitals".

[2][4][33] As recounted by the politician and period witness Petru Groza, Stroescu was a man of "puerile innocence", who began sending sizable donations to every Transylvanian peasant who wrote to him about personal misfortunes.

[41] Moreover, his philanthropic activity was preceded by that of his late brother Mihail, who, as early as 1882, had set up ten model schools in Romania-proper, after having failed to create a Romanian studies department at Novorossiya University.

"[41] In November 1910, he addressed an open letter to the Transylvanian leader Octavian Goga, which noted that the Romanian students at Franz Joseph University had proven incapable of either forming their own union or of publicizing calls for material support in the local press.

[56] Stroescu, who donated 50,000 Kronen to settling disputes between ASTRA and the popular banks, and then to the creation of alternative credit unions,[57] found sympathy with the writing team at Luceafărul, which basked in his critique of "our petty bourgeoisie [and] its plutocratic ideals".

[65] The Brînzeni estate was spared: the peasants there, having already set up a network for trafficking Romanian books into Bessarabia,[66] also formed a self-defense unit which protected their shared wealth.

[73] In June of the same year, as the gentry assembly formed a Society for Assisting Popular Education and the Study of National Customs, Stroescu became honorary chairman; Gore and Vladimir Herța were its "active presidents".

"[75] As noted by Halippa, Stroescu and Herța were trying to set up a distinct PNM for the boyars: "their action did not lead to much [...], although we revolutionaries never objected to them being elected to Sfatul Țării [...], since we believed that all intellectual forces needed to be consulted in political matters".

[78][79] As noted in 1927 by Clark, this document reflected the "comfortable old Russian patriarchal atmosphere", and was already outdated by the pace of "militant equalization"—although the dream of Romanian education was eventually fulfilled by the state itself, with its mandatory literacy programs.

[80] On September 1, 1918, from his temporary home in Paris, Stroescu joined Vasile Lucaciu and Ioan Cantacuzino in creating a National Romanian Action Committee for promoting the cause of Greater Romania in Allied countries.

[82] Stroescu also came out in support of other pan-Romanian causes: in March 1919, he had become honorary president of the League for the Liberation of Romanians in Timoc and Macedonia; its executive leaders included George Murnu, Sever Bocu and Tache Papahagi.

[84] In the national election of November, Halippa enlisted him as a candidate for his Bessarabian Peasants' Party (PȚB), which resulted in him representing Orhei County in the Assembly of Deputies.

Praised by Iorga for its composition and style,[89] the speech forewarned: "With a habit that has become second-nature, we scour the scene to find ways in which we may partake in the fruit of other people's labor.

After attending an Assembly session on December 13, Petru Groza reported seeing Stroescu openly mocked and heckled by deputies who resented his speech against the supposedly predatory habits of Romanian administrators in Bessarabia.

[3] On February 10, 1920, Stroescu took a stand against Ion Inculeț, the PȚB Minister for Bessarabia, accusing him of tolerating "oppression in savage fashion", and concluding, to his colleagues' dismay, that "the situation was better under the old Russian régime.

[95] Stroescu was also censured by Inculeț, who dismissed his speech as "café gossip" and a landowner's malcontent,[96] noting that the Bessarabian gentry as a whole reacted with "profound egotism" to the promise of land reform.

[100] His absence from public life was deplored that same month by political journalist I. Peltz, who argued that "the old man of mystical effluence" had been the only one mandated to speak authentically for Bessarabia as a whole.

When his interviewer, Ion Gorun, opined that there was little hope that the documents would still be salvageable, Stroescu retorted: "In 1915, I left a fur of mine, as well as other precious clothes I had, to a Lipovan from Odessa, and he took better care of them than I ever did.

On their behalf, Krupensky suggested that Stroescu, "an honest man in spite of his accepting to be 'elected' by the Roumanian Government as one of the Bessarabian deputies", openly spoke on topics that Iorga and other establishment politicians wanted kept secret.

Arriving in as a delegate of the central leadership, Mihai Popovici proposed that Stroescu be made honorary regional president; his motion was unanimously backed by the PNR recruits.

They included front-page editorials in Universul, Telegraful Român, Cuvântul Ardealului, Gazeta Transilvaniei, and (penned by Ghibu) Biruința, with additional coverage in ASTRA's Societatea de Mâine.

[124] In December 1929, the regency council acting for King Michael I decreed that Tașlâc-Nou village in Cleaștiț, Cetatea Albă County, be renamed "Vasile Stroescu".

[126] Northern Transylvania was also absorbed by Regency Hungary after the Second Vienna Award; a street in Cluj, formally named after Stroescu, was renamed in honor of Mihály Teleki.

In 1942, during the briefly restored Romanian rule, Chișinău City Hall, acting on Halippa's urging, purchased another bust of Stroescu, also by Onofrei, and had it installed in a public garden.

[39] The repressive trend was reversed following the Romanian Revolution of 1989: his name was again granted to a street in Bucharest,[3] and, since 2013, to a hall within the Palace of the Parliament;[4] however, as historian Sever Dumitrașcu noted, no Transylvanian school once funded by his money ever accepted to acknowledge him in the same fashion.