Ioan-Aurel Pop

Ioan-Aurel Pop (born January 1, 1955) is a Romanian historian. Pop was appointed Professor of History at Babeș-Bolyai University in 1996. He has since been Chairman of the Department of Medieval History and the History of Premodern Art at Babeș-Bolyai University. Since 2012, Pop has been Rector at Babeș-Bolyai University. In 2018 he was elected President of the Romanian Academy.

His work is focused on researching the medieval history of Romanians and of Central and South-East Europe (Romanian medieval institutions, Romanian-Slavic political formations in Transylvania, the relations of Romanians from Transylvania with the extra-Carpathian Romanian space, the Byzantine influence on Romanians, the relations of Transylvania with Europe Central and Western, the ethnic and confessional structure of Transylvania). He is a nationalist. After the appearance of the book History and myth in the Romanian consciousness by Lucian Boia, Pop published a book in reply, partially rejecting the deconstructivist thesis of the Bucharest historian. He also developed alternative school textbooks for high school.

Pop went to school in Brasov, and then, after completing the compulsory military internship, he studied Medieval History between 1975–1979 at "Babeș-Bolyai" University of Cluj-Napoca.

He gained his Ph.D in history in 1989, with a thesis on"The Cenesial Assemblies of Transylvania in the XIV - XVI centuries".