100 Lei Elena Cuza

Elena Cuza — wife of Alexandru Ioan Cuza, who unified the Danubian Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia in 1859 — spent much of her later life engaged in philanthropic work after her husband was forced to abdicate in 1866 by a coalition of political opponents that included both conservatives and liberals, an unlikely alliance known to Romanians as the "monstrous coalition." She outlived him by decades, dying in 1909. Her appearance on a commemorative gold issue is relatively recent in Romanian numismatic tradition; earlier decades of state coinage heavily favored male political and royal figures.