Vladimir Mitev
Abstract
In an interview with the website The Bridge of Friendship, historian and producer Paltin Nottara discusses his professional career and traces the centuries-old history of the Nottara family—from its Byzantine roots to its contribution to Romanian culture.
Paltin Nottara’s Professional Career
Paltin Nottara is a historian by training, a graduate of the University of Bucharest, who emigrated to France in 1968. His professional career has spanned several stages:
- Academic work: He teaches Romanian language and history at the University of Strasbourg.
- Private sector and media: He founded audiovisual production companies and launched the women’s magazine Modes Magazine in Paris, which was innovative for its time.
- After 1989: He actively supported the democratic changes in Romania. He founded the IDEA association to support the free press and invested in the creation of an International Press Center in Bucharest.
- Disappointment: He describes the period 1990–2000 as “ten lost years” for Romania due to political and economic stagnation, which led him to return permanently to France.
The History of the Notara Family
1. Byzantine and Levantine Roots (13th–15th Centuries)
The family originated in the Peloponnese (Monemvasia) and was initially involved in navigation, trade, and law (hence the name “notar”).
- Rise to Constantinople: In the 14th–15th centuries, members of the family became high-ranking officials.
- Luca Notara: The most influential figure in the empire after the emperor during the fall of Constantinople in 1453. Following a conflict with Sultan Mehmed II, he and his sons were executed.
- Ana Notara: Luca’s daughter, who managed to flee to Italy. She became the leader of the Greek diaspora in Venice, fought for Orthodoxy, and financed the printing of the first Greek etymological dictionary.
2. Spiritual Leaders and the Phanariot Era (17th–18th Centuries)
The family produced key figures for Orthodoxy:
- Patriarch Dositei of Jerusalem: He defended the Holy Places and supported Orthodoxy in the Romanian lands.
- Hrisant Notara: Dositei’s nephew and a scholar (mathematician, astronomer, and geographer). He served as tutor to the children of Prince Constantin Brâncoveanu and helped the prince’s family recover their property after his execution.
3. The Romanian Branch and Cultural Legacy (19th–20th Centuries)
The Romanian branch of the family settled in Wallachia in 1719. Through it, the Notara family left a lasting mark on the arts:
The Fate of the Legacy: Paltin Notara speaks with bitterness about the family museum in Bucharest, which was closed in 2015. The building was returned to individuals outside the family under dubious circumstances, and the valuable family heirlooms and library are now stored in warehouses.
Constantin Ion Notara (1859–1935): A legendary Romanian actor, after whom one of Bucharest’s major theaters is named today. Known for his phenomenal memory and his career at the “Comédie-Française.”
Constantin Notara (the son): A remarkable violinist and composer, founder of the “Regina Maria” quartet .
Note: This interview is a valuable oral history document for the history of the boyar families of Romania, offering a human perspective on how the great Balkan dynasties transformed and endured in the face of modernity and totalitarianism.
Interview
Paltin Nottara
Mr. Nottara, thank you very much for taking the time to be a guest of this Romanian-Bulgarian website—The Bridge of Friendship—and I greatly appreciate it, especially because, as we discussed before this recording, I invited you in your capacity as a member of the Nottara family—a family about which we are now going to learn more directly from the source, that is, from you. And, before we begin this discussion, which I expect to be very interesting, perhaps we could start like this: before we talk about the family, could you briefly tell us something about yourself, professionally speaking? What did you study, where did you live, what did you do before the Revolution and after the Revolution? So that we have an idea of the person before we move on to the family.
I understand. Thank you for the invitation. So, to start from the beginning, I was born in Romania and attended university in Bucharest, at the Faculty of History, majoring in World History and Archaeology. I left Romania in 1968, after completing my university studies, and settled in France, where I had my Romanian degrees recognized. Based on these degrees and my studies in Romania, I was offered a position as an assistant at the Faculty of History in Strasbourg and at the Institute of Romanian Studies in Strasbourg, because—and here I’ll digress—in France there are only two institutes where Romanian is studied: in Paris and in Strasbourg.
So, in 1969, I began an academic career that I pursued for seven years. After that, I changed my professional focus and entered the private sector, in the sense that I founded and established two audiovisual production companies, because it was another field that interested me, aside from history. There I produced and directed documentary films, fiction films, commercials, and so on. After that, I settled in Paris and continued this work, to which I added another activity: print media. In the field of print media, I created a magazine that had a predominantly female readership, called Modes Magazine.
This magazine had a unique feature, so to speak, or it stood out from other magazines targeting the same audience because it had very diverse content. It wasn’t limited just to fashion, beauty, or cosmetics, but also had a section dedicated to other topics that might interest—and certainly did interest—the female audience: culture, literary news, theater, cinema, and so on. In fact, we were copied after a few months, because two other magazines in this “family” of women’s publications also introduced this type of information—related to cultural life in general and other issues not typically covered in women’s magazines—into their content and table of contents.
So I can say, to conclude with a quip: there are very few things on my resume that I haven’t done. I can talk about most things and about other fields that interested me and in which I’ve been active. For me, there is no “before 1989” in Romania. In 1989, I had already been in France for many years, but regarding the year 1989, I can say that it was a very important moment for me as well, even though I wasn’t in the country, because, starting from that period, I was able to take action to support Romania in the post-1989 era.
Specifically in 1989–1990, I founded an association to support the emergence and development of the free press in Romania, an association called IDEA. I published a kind of manifesto called Voix Libre, which is a French pun with a double meaning: it meant both “Free Voice” and “Free Roads”. This association raised funds with which we initially provided support independently, but later partnered with other associations in France that shared the same goal of supporting the emergence of a free society in Romania. I made contact in Romania with the Group for Social Dialogue, to which I provided support regarding reporting and technical equipment for reporting, together with a well-known activist of that era, Mihai Berindei. At the same time, I was in contact with the Cultural Directorate of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which commissioned me to conduct a study in Romania on the development of the free press. I concluded, following this study, that there were several ways to help develop the free press in Romania and in the former communist countries. At the same time, I came to Romania in early 1990, in April, so for the first time in more than 12 years.
This market study concluded that there were several ways and means to support the development of the free press in Romania, which was a new press, so to speak. In 1991, I decided to accept a proposal made by several major media outlets in France,
Italy, and Spain, an initiative led by the newspaper Libération, which was at the time one of the three major newspapers in France, after Le Figaro and Le Monde. The newspaper’s trajectory since then has been different, but at that time it was a daily that had a much greater influence on the cultural and political life of France than it does now. This initiative materialized through an investment of nearly one million francs in Romania, and thus we established the International Press Center, for which we leased a building in central Bucharest, behind the Intercontinental Hotel. It was the former headquarters of the Romanian Association for Relations with the Soviet Union (ARLUS), an entity created by the Soviet Union for cultural purposes, but which could also engage in other activities. In any case, I remembered this building because, when I was a student in Romania, I had attended several conferences on Soviet literature and cinema held there.
I worked in Romania for seven years, during the most turbulent period following 1989—that is, between 1990 and 2000—a period of political, economic, and cultural upheaval. In my opinion, these were Romania’s lost decade, which caused the country to lag far behind the other nations that had shaken off the communist yoke. There is much to say about this period, both from a personal and a professional standpoint. I felt, in the late ’90s, that nothing could move in a positive direction quickly, so I wrapped up my activities in Romania and returned to France, where I resumed the work I had previously done in the audiovisual and media sectors. So, that’s roughly a summary of my professional journey.
Video (watch a film on YouTube from the German-French channel Arte about Paltin Nottara with auto-generated English subtitles)
The Nottara Family
Let’s talk more about the Nottara family, which, as far as I know, is a Levantine or Byzantine family—or, if you prefer, a Greek-Phanariot family—depending on the context in which it operates or excels. So, this might be a relatively long story. Let’s start, if you like, with the medieval Nottara family, and then, at some point, I can ask you, or you can go directly to the aspects related to Romania, the Romanian lands, and what this family—already Phanariot—is doing in Romania.
As a historian, I’ll take things chronologically. The Nottara family appears in European history—because this is European history, not limited to Byzantium—in the mid-13th century. It is a Greek family originally from southern Greece, from the Peloponnese, from a town that was very important at the time, a key port of the Byzantine Empire: Monemvasia.
So, in the 13th century, this family was involved in a wide range of activities: shipowners, captains of merchant ships, and owners of agricultural land, not only in the Peloponnese but also on the island of Kefalonia.
The family also flourished in the political sphere, playing a leading role in the governance of the Peloponnese and the island of Kythira, located not far south of the Peloponnese, which they ruled for about 10 years. They became known for opposing the Venetian occupation, which sought to control this island situated midway along the trade route between Venice and the Eastern Mediterranean. At the same time, the family included several scholars; in fact, the name Notaras is linked to the profession held by some members of the family—that of notaries, that is, people who knew how to read and write and who operated within the political and economic sphere of the Peloponnese. One of the members of the Nottaras family served, in the 13th and 14th centuries, as secretary to the metropolitan of the Peloponnese.
At the end of the 13th century and the beginning of the 14th century, a branch of the family—the one more involved in trade—moved to Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire. Most of the family’s activities then took place in Constantinople, while the branch in the Peloponnese remained engaged in purely commercial or agricultural activities. Beginning in the 14th century, in Constantinople, the Nottaras family was intensely involved in politics, with some members being very close to the imperial family. They were appointed ambassadors or grand dragomans (chief interpreters), a position equivalent at the time to that of foreign minister, to the Genoese colonies in Pera (on the other side of Constantinople) and to the Venetian colony established in the city. Pera is the area beyond the Golden Horn, which had become a Genoese colony.
Thus, in the 14th and 15th centuries, the Notaras family gained increasing importance, alongside the other noble families of the Byzantine Empire, such as the Cantacuzino, Palaiologos, and Asanes families. By the mid-15th century, the most important officials in the Byzantine Empire were from the Notaras family. There were three prime ministers, and the most important of them remains Luca Notaras, who, by the mid-15th century, had become the most influential man after the emperor and the wealthiest man in the empire, according to his contemporaries—a fact later confirmed by documentary evidence.
This brings us to one of the most significant and tragic moments in the history of the Byzantine Empire and the Notaras family: the conquest of Constantinople in 1453 by the Ottomans, thanks to a very intelligent young sultan, Mehmed II. He knew Luca Notaras personally and was on good terms with him, as Mehmed II was a highly cultured man with a very clear political vision regarding the evolution of the Ottoman and Byzantine Empires. At just 21 years old, he managed to bring down an empire that had been the most important and powerful of the Middle Ages, lasting 1,000 years, from 330, when Constantinople was founded, until 1453. It was the best-organized state, with the best administration and an initially very powerful army. However, the Byzantine Empire’s importance gradually declined after the sacking of 1204, carried out by Western crusaders who had set out for Jerusalem to liberate the Holy Places but stopped at Constantinople and plundered it, having never encountered such wealth before.
Returning to Luca Notaras: following the siege in May 1453, the day after Constantinople fell (on May 29), the sultan invited Luca Notaras to a meeting to decide the fate of the Byzantine nobles and the Greek population. He proposed to Luca Notaras that he become the representative of this nation, to administer it within the empire. Contrary to popular belief, within the Ottoman Empire, non-Muslim communities enjoyed considerable autonomy as long as they submitted. By paying a tribute, this autonomy was effectively secured. Many Christians decided at one point to convert to Islam simply to avoid paying taxes; this is the story of many Albanians or inhabitants of present-day Bosnia who, until 1450, were Christians—Catholic or Orthodox—and converted for economic advantages. It is an option that many historians have emphasized, but few have taken to heart.
Luca Nottaras agreed to Mehmed II’s proposal, but in return, the sultan asked him to send his youngest son to his court as a hostage. Luca Nottaras refused to do so, sparking a clash of egos between him and the sultan. Pressured by those around him who could not accept Nottaras—who had close ties to Western powers (Venice, Genoa)—as a court official, the sultan ultimately decided that he and two of his sons should be beheaded.
The surviving members of the Notaras family, along with other Byzantine Greek nobles, left Constantinople and scattered throughout the Mediterranean, but especially in Italy. Anna and her sisters had survived, but two of them would be taken into slavery in Adrianople after their father’s death. Anna was not in Constantinople at the time of the city’s fall; she had left earlier to visit a sister married to Prince Gattilusio in Enez, a port at the mouth of the Maritsa River. Thus, she avoided the slavery endured by her mother and other sisters.
Anna Notaras arrived in Genoa and then in Venice. Gradually, she became a sort of leader, or rather, the driving force behind the Greek diaspora in Italy. Her work in Venice was highly significant for over 40 years. She united the interests of the Greek diaspora, particularly regarding the preservation of the Orthodox faith. She fought hard with the Doge of Venice and the Pope so that this community (which numbered at least 5,000 Greeks in Venice) would have the right to practice their religion. Since they had no place of worship, she proposed that services be held in her own palace, which served as a place of worship for many years. Anna managed to recover a significant portion of the money that her father and grandfather, Nicolaos Notaras, had amassed and sent to banks in Italy—one in Venice and the other, the most important, at the Banco di San Giorgio in Genoa. With this inheritance, she supported the diaspora and left funds for the construction of an Orthodox church in Venice.
Unfortunately, the church was built after her death, as conflicts with the Catholic administration were protracted; it is known today as the Chiesa dei Greci (Church of the Greeks). Two icons bequeat by Anna Notaras in her will are still housed in this church, while other icons are found in the adjacent museum. Furthermore, she financed the printing of the first book in Greek: Etymologicum Magnum Graecum, an etymological dictionary. To this end, she hired craftsmen from Aldus Manutius’s printing house, financed the establishment of her own printing press, and in 1499 the first copies were published. She also funded the studies of some Greeks at the University of Padua. Many Greek scholars who had fled Constantinople brought Greek texts to Italy that influenced the Italian Renaissance. Anna Notaras actively participated in this cultural effervescence. In the same spirit, she sought to establish a sort of Greek colony with its own territory by purchasing the castle of Montauto in the Maremma region. Anna Notaras died in 1507.
Patriarch Dosoftei of Jerusalem and his nephew Chrysanthos Notaras
The family line continued through the maternal side in Greece, where two other pivotal figures emerged: the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Dosoftei (in the late 16th century), and his nephew, Hrisantos Notaras (until 1731). These two high-ranking Orthodox prelates did an immense amount for the Romanian lands. They helped build churches, print books, established printing presses, and supported the rulers in their struggle to uphold Orthodoxy against the Ottoman Empire. Dosoftei Notaras’s speech before the sultan and the French ambassador, who wanted the Holy Places in Jerusalem to be entrusted to the Catholics, has gone down in history. Dosoftei won the dispute, and their administration remained in the hands of the Greek Orthodox.
Hrisantos Notaras also had very close ties to Romania. He served as the guardian of Constantin Brâncoveanu’s children. This period was crucial for the family during what came to be known as the Phanariot Era. The Greek elite that remained in Constantinople after 1453 was concentrated in the Phanar district, as Mehmed II had relocated Muslim populations from Anatolia to the rest of the city. Hrisantos was also the guardian of the Mavrocordat family. When Brâncoveanu was executed, his family was left without official income. Brâncoveanu had money deposited in the Venetian treasury, but his wife had no proof. Hrisantos Notaras wrote a letter of recommendation guaranteeing that the fortune belonged to Brâncoveanu.
Thus, the family was able to recover the money; his wife returned to the country and secretly founded the Church of Saint George the New in Bucharest, where she buried the prince, placing a candle at his grave that burned for hundreds of years, with an inscription indicating Brâncoveanu’s final resting place.
The Romanian branch of the Notaras family
The connections continued with the appointment of the Phanariot princes. When Nicolae Mavrocordat (who had been a student of Chrysanthos) was appointed prince of Moldavia and then of Wallachia, he brought with him, as a friend and physician, a nephew of Chrysanthos: Dimitrios Notaras. Thus the Romanian branch of the Notaras family was established, with his settlement in Wallachia after 1719. Members of this branch often studied in Padua. Chrysanthos himself had studied in Paris and was the one who first named the sea between Europe and Africa the “Mediterranean Sea” (the Sea between the Two Lands); he also published books on algebra and geography.
In the Romanian branch, intellectual pursuits continued. We come to my great-grandparents. One of them, in the mid-19th century, had been an advisor to the Court of Auditors, having studied law and accounting. But one of his sons, Constantin Ion, wanted to be an actor. While in high school in Bucharest, he formed an amateur troupe that performed on terraces during the summer. He was noticed by Prince Ion Ghica, the director of the National Theater, who invited him to become an apprentice. His career took off, and Constantin Ion Nottara became one of the greatest Romanian actors until his death in 1935. He was also famous in Paris, where he had been sent on a scholarship from the National Theater to study at the Comédie-Française. The French were amazed by his extraordinary memory; he could replace any unavailable actor by learning the new text in a single night. The director of the Parisian theater even offered him a permanent box at the Comédie-Française, reserved for him free of charge whenever he visited Paris.
Constantin Ion Nottara had a single son, Constantin Nottara, a very talented violinist who studied in Austria and Germany. He founded a string quartet in Bucharest called “Regina Maria,” sponsored by the queen. He died in 1952. His wife, Ana Nottaras (a coincidence of names with our ancestor from Venice), managed under the communist regime to reclaim the building constructed by Constantin Nottara on Dacia Boulevard and to establish the Family Museum there.
The museum operated for nearly 50 years, until around 2015, when it was closed on false pretexts. The end result was the restitution (in my opinion, fraudulent) of the building to individuals who were not part of the family, disregarding Ana Nottaras’s will. The property was sold and stands empty today. From my perspective, this is an example of post-1990 real estate shenanigans. The entire collection—furniture, books, the library, works of art—was packed into crates and is now stored in the warehouses of the Bucharest City Museum.
Photo: Paltin Nottara (source: Paltin Nottara)
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