Elena Alistar-Romanescu was notable for her medical activity, but also as a militant for the union with Romania, and particularly as the only female deputy in the Country Council of Bessarabia. After completing her secondary education in Chișinău, Bessarabia, she made her way to Iași, in the Old Romanian Kingdom, in order to enrol in the Faculty of Medicine. She finished her studies in 1914 right as Europe descended into war.

Elena Alistar-Romanescu endorsed the unification of Bessarabia with Romania through a series of articles. The attempt to establish a unionist propaganda group led to her arrest, on August 19, 1914, in Chișinău. After being released, she settled in Iași, where she continued to militate for the union. She was among the founding members of the National Moldovan Party and as such, in October of the same year, she would be elected Deputy in the Country Council.

After the union, she focused her attention and energy on improving the educational system and the situation of women. She founded the Women’s Cultural League and the Group of Romanian Women in Bessarabia. Following the annexation of the province by Soviet Russia, on June 28, 1940, she took refuge in Romania, first in Iași, later settling in Pucioasa. In her unionist activity, Elena Alistar-Romanescu followed a principle that remains relevant today: ‘Every human being must bring his or her oblation of work, of heart, of soul, of his being or even of life, in order to contribute as much as possible to the realisation of the nation’s aspirations…’ [1]

[1] Apud Iurie Colesnic, Unknown Bessarabia (Chișinău, Moldova: Universitas Press, 1993), p. 206.