Petru Rareș
voievod of Moldavia
Petru Rareș (pronounced [ˈpetru ˈrareʃ]; c. 1483 – 3 September 1546) or Petru IV was twice voivode of Moldavia from 20 January 1527 to 18 September 1538 and from 19 February 1541 to 3 September 1546. He was an illegitimate child born (probably at Hârlău) to Stephen the Great. His mother was Maria Răreșoaia of Hârlău, whose existence is not historically documented but who is said to have been the wife of a wealthy boyar fish-merchant nicknamed Rareș "rare-haired" (i.e. bald). Rareș thus was not Petru's actual name but a nickname of his mother's husband.
In his youth he was a fish merchant, but Prince Ștefăniță, grandson of Ștefan cel Mare, on his deathbed, recommended Petru as a suitable contender to the throne, thus acknowledging Petru's blood lineage from Ștefan cel Mare.
Petru is said to have exhibited many of his father's qualities, such as ambition, daring, bravery, piety, artistic taste. However, he was marked by inconstancy and a lack of political instincts.
First period of rule
In the Hungarian battles between Ferdinand Habsburg and John Zápolya, he initially sided with Ferdinand, but when the Ottomans awarded recognition to Zápolya, he switched allegiances. In exchange for the citadel of Bistrița, he entered Transylvania on Zápolya's side and crushed Ferdinand at Feldioara on 22 June 1529.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q249558. VIAF identifies the subject as 89713286. The Library of Congress control number is n79012566. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1483, 1546, 1527 and 1538.
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This entry incorporates text from “Petru Rareș” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.