100 Lei Antioh Cantemir

Antioh Cantemir (1708–1744) was the son of Moldavian ruler Dimitrie Cantemir and is regarded as the first major poet in the Russian literary tradition, composing his celebrated verse satires while serving as Russian ambassador in London and Paris. This issue marks the three-hundredth anniversary of his birth. Moldova's commemorative silver program has consistently claimed figures from the Cantemir dynasty as national patrimony — a pointed cultural assertion given that Antioh spent virtually his entire adult life in Western European diplomatic service and wrote exclusively in Russian.