Dumitru Topciu dating history

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Dumitru or Dimitrie Gheorghe Topciu (Gagauz: Dmitriy Topçu, Bulgarian: Димитър Топчу, Dimitar Topchu, Russian: Дмитрий Георгиевич Топчу, Dimitri Georgevich Topchu; September 2, 1888 – 1958) was a Romanian politician and agriculturalist of Bessarabian birth and Gagauz ethnicity. Originally a subject of the Russian Empire, he established his reputation as a lawyer and advocate of peasant welfare, also networking between the Bessarabian Gagauz, Romanians, and Bulgarians. He formed a Bulgarian–Gagauz caucus after the February Revolution, seeking representation inside the Russian Republic, and overall shunning Romanian nationalism. After his mandate in the Provisional Council of the Russian Republic was cut short by the October Revolution, he was sent to Sfatul Țării, which acted as a legislative body of the Moldavian Democratic Republic. Topciu was absent during its March 1918 vote on that polity's union with Romania; by his own testimony, he assisted the Romanian expeditionary force, in his other capacity as the provisional leader of Bender Uyezd. After escaping prosecution for his alleged smuggling activities along the Dniester, he settled in Tighina, entering Romanian politics as a member of the People's Party.