Haralamb Vasiliu (1880–1953) – the founder of higher agricultural education in Moldova

Abstract

Born in 1880, Haralamb Vasiliu graduated from the Iași Internat High School in 1898. After completing his studies at the University of Iași, in 1901 he obtained a degree in physical and chemical sciences, and in 1902, a degree in mathematical sciences. With the support of the "V. Adamachi" scholarship awarded by the Romanian Academy, he studied between 1902 and 1905 at the Higher School of Agriculture and Forestry in Hohenheim (Germany), where he was recognized as the most outstanding student in the institution’s over one hundred-year history. He then pursued specialization studies at the University of Breslau (now Wrocław, Poland), where he defended his doctoral thesis in 1906. At the age of 26, he obtained the position of professor at the University of Iași, where in 1907, he began free courses in agricultural sciences. Later, he received approval to establish an experimental field, followed by the creation of the „Section of Agricultural Sciences”, the predecessor of the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences of the University of Iași. In 1933, the faculty under the leadership of Dean Haralamb Vasiliu was transferred to Chișinău, thus laying the foundation for higher agricultural education in Moldova. Through his visionary hypotheses, he anticipated major discoveries in plant and animal physiology, including the spiral structure of protein substances and the spatial structures of protein macromolecules.