A common figure
\nin classic travel books, the adventurous explorer in search of gold and earthly
\nparadise is a rare occurrence in Romanian history. We only have a handful of
\naccounts from the few Romanian travellers of the 17th and 18th
\ncenturies, such as Nicolae Milescu, who wrote The Description of China after
\nbeing sent there as an envoy by the Russian Tsar Aleksey Mikhailovich between
\n1675 and 1678. However, in the 19th
\ncentury, works on the exploration of lesser-known regions started to include
\nRomanian names, and one of these is that of Julius Popper. An engineer,
\nexplorer and cartographer, Julius Popper was born in Bucharest in 1857. He was
\nthe son of an antique trader, bookshop owner, journalist and teacher at the
\nfirst school of the Jewish community in Bucharest. Young Julius attended
\nprimary and secondary school in Bucharest and then went to university in Paris,
\nwhere he got his engineer diploma in 1879. His first employment was with the
\nSuez Canal Company. By 1883, he had travelled to the Far East and Alaska. We
\ntalked to journalist Evelin Fonea of the Realitatea evreiasca magazine
\nin Bucharest, who told us more about the life of Julius Popper:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
In 1967, when
\nArgentina celebrated 150 years since it proclaimed its independence, Julius
\nPopper, one of the colonising pioneers of Tierra del Fuego, was mentioned among
\nthe people honoured for their contribution to the foundation of the Argentine
\nstate. A daring young man, with a passion for adventure, Julius Popper
\ntravelled to Constantinople, India, China and Japan. He then went to Suez,
\nSiberia, North America, and, after some short stopovers, he reached Mexico. He
\ndrew up the best map of that country and worked as an editor for a publication
\ncalled Diario de los foresteros. From there he went to Brazil, and in
\n1885 he was already in Argentina, a country that became his second homeland. He
\nexplored the south of Patagonia looking for gold and persuaded Argentina’s
\ngovernment to support his quest.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
The first trip did not produce
\nsatisfactory results for the expedition headed by Popper. A second, more
\nthoroughly prepared, trip was taken, with better results. Popper settled in
\nTierra del Fuego and started his colonising mission. There he established
\nseveral gold mines as well as a navigation line between El Paramo and Buenos
\nAires. He also built a narrow railway, and his local circulation stamp, issued
\nin 1891, turned into an extremely valuable item for collectors. During searches
\nfor gold in El Paramo, Popper invented a device to separate gold from seawater.
\nThe invention was patented and used in several countries in South America and
\nSouth Africa. The result of his research was presented in articles, studies,
\nmaps, brochures and books, while the French general encyclopaedia called La
\nGrande Encyclopedie, published in late 19th century, mentions him as
\none of the most important explorers of the time. Evelin Fonea recalls other
\ndetails about Popper’s expeditions:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
In September 1886, Popper set out
\non an expedition with two smaller vessels, Madona del Carmine and Maria Luiza.
\nIt was an expedition during which they were faced with many dangers. He carried
\nout the second expedition in 1888, which was a success. He turned the El Paramo
\ncolony into a town and later became its Governor. He organised the town, issued
\na golden coin and printed a stamp with his effigy. Being homesick, he gave
\nrivers and fields the names of places from his native country, such as Punta
\nSinaia, Mount Lahovary, Rio Rosetti, Rio Ureche, Valea Iasilor, Brosteni Park,
\netc. What is interesting is that free peasants from Wallachia were among the
\ncolonisers, whose descendants would call themselves ‘hijos de rumanos’, that is
\n‘children of Romanians’.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Despite being away from Romania for
\na long time, Jiulis Popper stayed in permanent touch with his native country.
\nHe was in close contact with the historian and writer V. A. Urechia, an
\nadvocate of Romanian science and a member of the Romanian Academy. Evelin Fonea
\ntells us more:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
In 1887 Popper became a corresponding
\nmember of the Romanian Geographical Society, which collected all of Popper’s
\nscientific notes thanks to the then education minister V.A. Urechia. Popper
\nlater offered Urechia a gift, an album with sealskin covers and a plaque
\ninscribed with the words Tierra del Fuego, made of the gold he found on
\nthe beach in Punta Sinaia.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Iulius Popper died on June 7th,
\n1893, aged only 36. He was found dead in his room in Buenos Aires, with the
\nprobable cause of death being heart arrest. He was buried in a common grave in
\nthe city’s municipal cemetery. His personality and his journeys have inspired
\nmany fiction writers. One of them was Radu Tudoran, whose book Full Speed
\nAhead! became very popular and eventually inspired a film. In 2001, when the
\n125 years since the establishment of the Romanian Geographic Society were
\ncelebrated, Popper’s conferences were included in a volume entitled
\nExtraordinary Journeys, alongside other important names of Romanian
\ngeographic research. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A common figure in classic travel books, the adventurous explorer in search of gold and earthly paradise is a rare occurrence in Romanian history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":129846,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41141],"tags":[42691,42692],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-129845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-history-show","tag-julius-popper","tag-romanian-explorers"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n