A member of the non-emancipated Jewish-Romanian community, Lazăr Șăineanu stood for the Haskalah (Jewish Enlightenment) ideas, and opted in favour of Jewish assimilation into the Romanian mainstream. His repeated requests for naturalisation were eventually unsuccessful, but propelled him to the center of a political conflict which opposed the antisemitic current to the advocates of tolerance. In 1901, Șăineanu and his family quit the Kingdom of Romania and resettled in France, where the scholar lived until his death. Becoming known for his pioneering work to the study of Middle French and his investigations into the origins of argot, as well as for his critical essays on 16th-century writer François Rabelais, he was a recipient of the Institut de France's Volney Prize for 1908. The son in law of publisher Ralian Samitca, Șăineanu was survived by his brother Constantin, a noted lexicographer, journalist and polemicist.
