Matei Ghica

Matei or Mateiu Grigore Ghica (Albanian: Matei Gjika; Greek: Ματθαίος Γκίκας, romanized: Matthaios Ghikas; Romanian Cyrillic and Church Slavonic: Матею Гика; Turkish: Matei Gika; French: Mat[t]hieu Ghika; c. 1720 – after 1777) was the Prince of Wallachia between 4 September 1752 and June 1753, and Prince of Moldavia between June 1753 and 19 February 1756. A member of the Ghica family, he was the son of Grigore II Ghica, grandson of Alexander Mavrokordatos the Exaporite, and brother of Scarlat Ghica; he thus belonged to the Phanariotes, a group of Greek-speaking and Christian aristocrats who performed political and bureaucratic services for the Ottoman Empire. During Matei's childhood and youth, Grigore, having served as Chief Dragoman, had similarly moved between the throne of the two Romanian-speaking tributary principalities. Matei himself was first attested with his father in Moldavia, where he is known to have been homeschooled in Greek during the late 1720s. He fled that country during the Russo-Turkish War of 1735–1739, after which Grigore lost his throne and his political influence.

In the 1740s, as Grigore reemerged from exile and took the throne of Wallachia, Matei was fated for political advancement. He became Chief Dragoman at the court of Sultan Mahmud I in 1751, but was completely uninterested in the office, leaving it to be run by his father-in-law, George Bassa Mihali. He allegedly disappointed his father, who, before his death in 1752, pleaded to be succeeded by Scarlat; Matei outmaneuvered his brother, and obtained the throne for himself. He continued some of his father's policies, including when it came to expanding Bucharest, but also angered the native boyars, as well as many commoners, by flagrantly indulging the Greek community. He was forced out of the country by an uprising that earned support from the Wallachian Orthodox Church; Mahmud instead assigned him as ruler of Moldavia, moving the Moldavian prince, Constantin Racoviță, to Wallachia.

In his significantly longer period as Moldavian ruler, Matei placated the local boyardom to the point of being identified as its instrument. He was primarily focused on expanding his activities as a patron (ktitor) of the Eastern Orthodox Church, and on repairing the princely court of Iași. He spied on the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, which was Moldavia's powerful neighbor, and, during his last days on the throne, lavishly entertained a caravan of Polish diplomats. Matei's ouster from that role signaled personal disaster, rendered acute when he divorced Lady Smaranda. He withdrew from high-politics until 1777, when he made an ill-fated attempt at recovering the Wallachian throne; he was part of a conspiracy which had marginal support from the Russian Empire, and, though he simply walked away from the affair, he saw his supporters severely punished by the Sublime Porte. He died at an unknown date, leaving only a daughter, who returned to Moldavia.