The King of the Gypsies arranged an opulent wedding for his 12-year-old daughter, ordering a dozen pigs and buying her a lacy gown from Italy.
When she stormed out, bridesmaids in tow, the furious outcry forced Romania to stop ignoring child marriage and pushed him to take a public change of heart.
Florin Cioaba, a member of the family that has led the country's embattled minority since the 19th century, went on to become a leader who helped smooth relations with mainstream Romania and modernise Roma traditions, while still preserving his community's separate culture.
Hundreds of Roma turned out for a funeral in his Transylvanian hometown of Sibiu to remember him today. A banner emblazoned with his crowned visage was draped across an apartment building. Stonemasons have been carving his tomb in black marble for the last week.
Cioaba died of a heart attack Sunday at age 58 while on vacation in Turkey. Mourners were carrying his coffin, partially lidded with glass and rumored to be air-conditioned along a seven-kilometre route through the city.
"He cared very much about his Roma community and he helped it a lot. He integrated it into Romanian society; he sent the members of the community to school," relative Ion Rudaru said.
But the road was bumpy. In 2003, as his 12-year-old daughter was preparing for marriage, the family openly talked about how Ana Maria would stop going to school once she was married.
That may have been why she fled the church in front of 400 astonished guests, many of them members of the media invited to experience Roma culture.
She tearfully returned a few minutes later and was duly married off. The ensuing uproar over the wedding became a pivotal moment for Cioaba. The couple was separated after the ceremony and did not live together.
Cioaba later pushed for education for Roma girls and began preaching that they should not be married until they were 16, aligning Roma tradition with Romanian law.
Roma started arriving from India in the 14th century and there are an estimated 8 million in Europe, with the largest population in Romania.
