Prince Barbu Ştirbey

Barbu Ştirbey

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Barbu Ştirbey.Prince Barbu Ştirbey (1873–1946) was briefly Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Romania in 1927. He was the son of Prince Alexandru Ştirbey and his wife Maria Ghika-Comăneşti, and grandson of another Barbu Dimitrie Ştirbey (born Bibescu, adopted Ştirbey), who was Prince of Wallachia and died in 1869.

He married Princess Nadèje Bibescu about 1895, and had four daughters.

His real significance in Romania history arises from his role as close confidant of Queen Marie, who was herself a highly influential figure in Romanian government circles prior to the accession of her son King Carol II to the throne in 1930.

Ştirbey and Queen Marie were lovers, and Ştirbey was probably the father of her youngest child, Mircea, and possibly the father of Ileana.

Shortly after the Royal coup of August 23, 1944, he traveled to Moscow with the Romanian delegation that signed on September 12 the Armistice Agreement between Romania and the Soviet Union. Ştirbey was one of the plenipotentiary signatories of Agreement; the other signatories were Lucreţiu Pătrăşcanu, Dumitru Dămăceanu, and Ghiţă Popp on the Romanian side, and Rodion Malinovsky on the Soviet side.