Anton Crihan is the representative of the thirteenth generation, male, of the old Moldavian
boyar family, the first mention of the reign of
Stephen the Great. The Prince's Book of Constantine Movilă states that Anton Crihan's ancestors honored the boyar's title of "paharnic". He studied at the
Bălți High School for boys and the
University of Odessa, Faculty of
Economics. Crihan served as Member of
Sfatul Țării (1917–1918), the
Parliament of Romania, and the
Government of Romania. After
World War I and the
Communist revolution in Russia, Crihan, was among the handful of campaigners who succeeded in annexing most of
Bessarabia to
Romania. He became politically active in Romania, which was then governed by a constitutional monarchy. Trained as an economist, he served on the Central Committee of the National Peasant Party, was elected to several terms in Parliament and was appointed Agriculture Minister. After the Soviet takeover, Crihan went into hiding and then fled on foot. He made his way across
Europe spending time in
Paris to complete a PhD in economics at the
Sorbonne. He finally arrived in the
United States in 1949, where he delivered lectures and wrote articles and books championing the
reunification of Moldavia and Romania. In the United States he married Olivia Lula, a niece of
Petru Groza.
Moldavia, now known as
Moldova, gained independence when the
Soviet Union disintegrated in late 1991. He died in
St. Louis, United States, but to his
will, he was buried in
Chișinău (in the
Central Cemetery). == Works ==