Alexandru Coconul

Alexandru Radu (Church Slavonic and Romanian Cyrillic: Алєѯандрꙋ воєвод, Alexandru Voevod; Italian: Alessandro Radoulo or Alessandro sesto, "Alexander the Sixth"; 1611 – June or October 1632), better known as Alexandru Coconul ("Alexander the Child" or "the Princelet") or Alexandru Corvin, was the Prince of Wallachia from 1623 to 1627, and then the Prince of Moldavia from 1629 to 1630. He was the son of Radu Mihnea, who reigned several times in both countries the 1600s and 1610s; this connection also made Alexandru among the last of Vlad the Impaler's Romanian bloodline within the House of Drăculești. The dynasty's apex coincided with the tightening of control by the Ottoman Empire over both principalities, leading to their direct appointment or demotion by the Ottoman Sultan, in exchange for gifts and promises to pay up in taxes (including the haraç). Radu Mihnea contemplated ways to decrease the Ottoman-imposed burdens, and had a cautious foreign policy, aligning himself with the Republic of Venice; he was part-Venetian himself, while Alexandru's mother was Italo-Levantine. The family also favored Catholicism, possibly to the point of secretly embracing it—while continuing to act as nominal protectors of the Eastern Orthodox Church.

Alexandru's Wallachian reign was instrumented as a dynastic union, since his father was at the time serving as Moldavia's prince; the fourteen-year-old made Bucharest his permanent capital, and continued works at Radu Vodă Monastery. Both countries were at the time partly occupied by the Crimean Khanate, whose troops, which produced a major economic slump, were only chased out by the neighboring Principality of Transylvania. As a result, both Radu Mihnea and Alexandru were controlled by Gabriel Bethlen, the Transylvanian Prince, who wished to eventually annex Moldavia and Wallachia to his own polity. Alexandru obtained more political leverage by marrying Ruxandra Beglitzi, from an influential clan of Ottoman Greeks, but immediately shunned her upon discovering that she had been disfigured by smallpox. Coconul was orphaned and politically isolated by 1626, when Miron Barnovschi-Movilă, who took over in Moldavia, came to act as his superior.

Targeted by intrigues and uprisings, Coconul tried to reduce government waste, and oversaw the first trial for embezzlement in Wallachia's history; he also tried lessening the fiscal weight on his subjects. His failure to pay up his Ottoman debts ended up vexing his liege, Murad IV, who had him deposed and exiled. When his protectors intervened on his behalf, Alexandru was allowed to replace Barnovschi in Moldavia. His seven-months-long reign there was sabotaged by the Movilești family, as well as by Coconul's subservience to his Greek-and-Venetian allies. Perceived as a liability, he was replaced by Murad with the more experienced Moise Movilă; this did not stop Alexandru from still pursuing the throne of either principality, and he presented himself as a candidate to the day of his death, aged 21. His relatives engaged in a protracted legal battle over money he had stored at the Zecca of Venice. He himself faded out of public memory, and by the 19th century was casually mistaken for his lifelong rival, Alexandru Iliaș.