Radio România Internațional

Tag: exhibit

  • The first Cantacuzins in the heritage of Bucharest’s Municipality Museum.

    The first Cantacuzins in the heritage of Bucharest’s Municipality Museum.

    A new documentary exhibition has been made available to visitors on the premises at Bucharest’s Municipality Museum. Playing host to the new exhibition in the Museum’s main building, the Sutu Palace, located in Bucharest’s City Center.

    The theme is “The first Cantacuzins in the heritage of Bucharest’s Municipality Museum”. The curator of the exhibition, Mihaela Rafaila of the Museum’s Modern and Contemporary History Compartment has revealed, for us, the underlying intention in staging the exhibition.

    „Through the temporary exhibition themed ‘The first Cantacuzins in the heritage of Bucharest’s Municipality Museum’ I intended to introduce to the lay public some certificates written on paper or on parchment, in the Slavonic and Romanian languages, with Cyrillic letters, where the members of this important family of the 17th and 18th centuries are mentioned in their capacity as witnesses, through the dignities they held as part of the Princely Council, but also through the selling-purchase acts they signed at that time or issuing charters or decrees, such as the case of ruling princes Serban and Stefan Cantacuzino. “

    The first of the great dignitaries, men of culture and even vaivodes who were members of this boyar family in Wallachia was court marshal Constantin Cantacuzino, who was born in 1598 and assassinated in 1663. He was the central figure as part of the exhibition hosted by the Bucharest Municipality Museum.

    „As an outcome of his being married to vaivode Radu Serban’s youngest daughter, princess Elina or Ilinca, as she was called around the house, Constantin Cantacuzino began his ascension according to Wallachia’s high-office positions scheme. Apart from his personal fortune, inherited and amassed, the court marshal benefitted from his wife’s dowry, which enabled him to have his 11 children, six boys and five daughters, relate to the most distinguished Moldavian and Wallachian families of boyars.

    Benefitting from a special education, court marshal Constantin Cantacuzino was a great lover of books. Having INTINSE economic and diplomatic relationships and also enjoying the respect especially from the ottomans, court marshal Cantacuzino at that time was known as vaivode Matei Basarab’s secret councillor, being a towering figure of Romanian politics in the 17th century.”

    Here is curator Mihaela Rafaila, briefly introducing to us the great dignitary’s wife, Elina Cantacuzino (1611-1687):

    “In turn, Elina proved her special qualities: she was forgiving of her husband’s murderers, tenacious in her bid to rescue the house after the disappearance of the family’s STALP, cautious in distributing the fortune among her children, loving towards the boys, whom she gently advised to have a truly brotherly relationship, manly because of the journey she took to the Holy Places. “

    What are the documents the Bucharest Municipality Museum exhibition brings before visitors, which are highly relevant for the history of this distinguished Romanian family ?

    “As part of the exhibition, the name of the founder of the Cantacuzino family in Wallachia, Constantin Cantacuzino, is mentioned for the first time in the act of June 8, 1626, in his capacity of witness of the Princely Council, the dignity he held being that of great court marshal. ”

    The exhibition themed The First Cantacuzins brings three volumes before the public, important for the history of Romanian culture. The exhibition lays special emphasis on the Bible of Bucharest, also known as the Bible of Serban Cantacuzino, the first complete translation of the Bible into Romanian, published in 1688.

    Mihaela Rafailă:

    „On display as part of the exhibition we also have three books ‘The Holy and Divine Gospel, composed following the structure of the Greek Gospel’, printed at the behest and with the financial support of ruler Serban Cantacuzino, in the year 1682. Then there is The Bible, also known as ‘The Bible of Bucharest’, as well as ‘The Political and Geographical History of Wallachia’, whose author was identified by the great historian Nicolae Iorga as being province governor Mihai Cantacuzino.

    Then again, speaking about the Bible of Bucharest, it represents the first complete translation of the Divine Writ, made at the command of the Most Kind-Hearted Christian and this our enlightened ruler Ioan Șerban Cantacuzino Vaivode. It was printed on filigree paper.

    The covers are wooden panels bound in leather, whose decoration was made through hot pressing. The editing of the Bible represented an important stage in the process of imposing the national language as liturgical language, at once being a reference monument of the printing press art of Wallachia. That once and for all set the path the ecclesiastical written language would take.

    The Bible was widely spread in the Romanian principalities, Wallachia, Moldavia and in Transylvania and even reached Poland, when a copy was given to former metropolitan bishop Dosoftei, who was in exile. Another copy was in the possession of Pope Benedict the 14th, the copy, as we speak, is kept in the Library of Bologna University. The displayed copy circulated in Transylvania, the counties of Alba and Hunedoara. “

  • Gift-offering as an exercise in power, in communist Romania

    Gift-offering as an exercise in power, in communist Romania


    Personality cult in the case of political
    leaders is a common trait in all historical ages. Flattering the leaders is part
    and parcel of a deeply-engrained human psychological mechanism. On one hand, it
    has something to do with the human being’s wish to receive over-the-top recognition
    as a sign of their power. On the other hand, it has something to do with the
    human being’s wish to climb up the social ladder, undeservedly, more often than
    not. However, over and above such an old practice, dating from time immemorial,
    we find the political leaders’ personality cult as a hallmark of fascism and communism. In Romania,
    the communist regime was no exception to the rule. Between 1965 and 1989, the
    communist leader Nicolae Ceausescu was the figure head around whom a blatantly
    wanton personality cult revolved.


    Such an exaggerated praise
    of the political leader was in fact an outgrowth of the regime’s brutality. In effect, praising the leader translated into hyper-eulogizing
    newspaper articles, grandiose shows on stadiums, parades, television and radio
    shows, official birthday ceremonies. Offering presents was a significant part of
    the personality cult. Presents were offered by economic entities, by craftsmen,
    by people from all walks of life or by foreign cultural and scientific personalities.
    Throughout the years, the presents received by Elena and Nicolae Ceaușescu made a special
    collection, as their diversity was literally spectacular. Paintings and
    sculptures alone make a nonesuch collection of works, whereby painters and
    sculptors were elbowing each other out, in their bid to pay their respects to
    the two communist leaders.


    Thirty years were marked
    in 2019 from the December 1989 revolution, when the Ceausescu regime was
    toppled. On that occasion, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Bucharest brought out
    a small-sized, 440-page album. The work included reproductions of paintings and
    various other works of art, dedicated to Elena and Nicolae Ceausescu. The album
    is somehow a sequel to Cornel Ilie’s A Portrait for the comrade, including reproductions
    of objects in the collection of Romania’s National Museum of History The latter
    album was published a year earlier, in 2018.

    Calina Barzu is a museographer with
    the National Contemporary Art Museum’s Photography Archive. Calina is also a
    curator of the tribute art exhibition. Ms Barzu didn’t fail to mention the parallel
    exhibition mounted on the premises, including items that were part of the then
    the automobile owners, members of the Retromobil club. Integrating day-to-day
    objects into the tribute exhibition is a way of understanding the spirit of the
    time when two generations of Romanians lead their lives, between 1945 and 1989.


    The
    exhibition was put together based on the 2019 catalogue that marked 30 years
    from the Revolution. It is a selection of the tribute works from the collection
    of the museum. The exhibition brings together works authored by well-established
    artists, in front of the onlookers and visitors, but also works made by ordinary
    people or working teams, works that were part of the heritage of the museum’s
    collection. The exhibition was initiated in December 2019, it had several
    episodes or series where the collections objects were on display. We initiated
    a collaboration with Retromobil Romania, they joined us along this theme and
    came up with several items belonging to their members’ collections, with automotive-related
    exhibits. The Retromobil items on
    display range from driving licences, automobile publications, maps, magazines
    and board notebooks. We also have a fridge that could be encased in the trunk
    and a TV set which could also be encased in the car’s accumulator. We have several
    registration plates and each of them has a story of its own, how they were
    rated according to the social class. We also have automobile objects that could
    be included in the travel kit. We also have a selection of archive images
    featuring pictures of cars.


    Small-sized though it is, the
    catalogue of tribute items at the National Museum of Contemporary Art quite aptly
    highlights the propagandistic charge of the tribute works of art. Sabin Balasa (1932-2008), was one of the most highly acclaimed painters of the Ceausescu
    regime. In the album, he was included with The Ceausescu Era, a painting he made
    in 1988, oil on canvas, 120
    x 150 centimetres. The work depicts four miners looking forward, against a
    half-dark, blue background. Here is Călina Bârzu once again, this time telling
    us what special items has the museum exhibited, which were part of the Ceausescus’
    presents collection.


    The special items in our collection include scale models
    of the presents sent by the people or by the enterprises that offered those
    presents. One such object, which is rather more special, showing a lot of
    creativity, performance and quality, is this present received from the Aeronautic
    Enterprise in Bacau, which also has a dedication for the two. It is a scale
    model of an airplane, symbolizing the work of the factory staff. Part of our items
    come from the original collection of then the Museum of the Romanian Communist
    Party and the Art Museum. It is a similar manner to place
    the leader centre-stage. The objects were supposed to illustrate the achievements
    of the factory, on one hand, but also his own achievements, on the other hand, they
    spoke about how he succeeded to bring the entire technological process and
    about the fact that it was entirely thanks to him that all the economic achievements
    were possible, thanks to him and to the work of the people. Everything was possible thanks
    to him, since he succeeded to contribute to the people’s progress and well-being.
    Most of the objects are in a good preservation condition.


    The tribute exhibition
    of presents received by Elena and Nicolae Ceausescu, hosted by the Museum of
    Contemporary Art, has a plain message for today’s generation: under a dictatorship,
    valuable as it may be, fine art falls outside the scope of a free spirit.

    (Translation by Eugen Nasta)