Bogdan of Cuhea (or
Bogdan-Vodă;
Bogdan I of Moldavia) is the second founding-figure of the
Principality of Moldavia, its
ruler between 1359 and 1365. He was a
Moldovan (Vlach) nobleman and
Voivode of
Maramureş, inside the
Kingdom of Hungary.
Bogdan appeared in Maramureş in 1334 as a voivode of the Romanians of
Cuhea, on the
Iza River, but he lost his voivodship due to some disagreement with
Louis I of Hungary, in a 1343 diploma being called "the former Voivode of Maramureş who became unfaithful to the king".
[Vásáry, p. 159]Some historians (such as Győrffy) identified him with a certain Bogdan, son of Mikola, who migrated from the Balkans, while others (such as Spinei) say there's no reason to assume it's the same person. The point of the historiographical dispute is whether Romanians are old settlers or indigenous to Maramureş or whether they settled as late as 13th century,
as part of the Romanian-Hungarian debate over the primacy of settlement in
Transylvania.
In cca. 1349, Bogdan and a group of followers rebelled against Hungarian authority and crossed the
Carpathians to the east, in a
march created as a barrier to
Mongol incursions by the Kingdom of Hungary in the times of
Dragoş. Bogdan crossed the mountains together with his followers, deposed the local ruler,
Balc, grandson of Dragoş and declared Moldavia independent from Hungary.
The
Ottoman chronicles started to refer to Moldavia as
Bogdan or
Bogdania in reference to the
polity. During his reign, the first Moldovian coins were minted, bearing the inscription:
Moneda Moldaviae-Bogdan Waiwo(da).
Unlike his deposed predecessors, who had been close to the Hungarian Crown, he reshaped Moldavia's position and secured her independence a decade after he seized the throne. He successfully resisted Hungarian and
Polish ambitions whilst confronting Mongol rule to the east (see
Golden Horde).
His first capital was located at
Baia, then at
Siret, but was soon moved to
Suceava.
He ordered the building of
Bogdana Monastery, in
Rădăuţi,
Suceava County, which is the oldest standing one in Moldavia.
