Radio România Internațional

Tag: Phanariote rule

  • Mental health legislation and reforms in the Romanian space

    Mental health legislation and reforms in the Romanian space

    Mental illnesses have always been a source of pain for patients and their relatives, and in some situations even the cause of many tragedies, such as homicides committed by those who suffered from a mental illness. In time, societies and legislators have taken measures to prevent and punish such acts, codified according to the level of understanding of each and every historical time. In the Romanian space as well, cases of insanity, as they were generically called, were treated, and the crimes committed by those ill-fated people were punished. Codes of laws explicitly stated the measures that the justice representatives had to take to prevent the causes and remove the effects.



    Throughout its history, jurisprudence has moved in the direction of decriminalizing offenders with a mental illness. In the Romanian Principalities, the first codes of laws in this sense were the ‘Romanian Book of Learning or ‘The Code of Vasile Lupu, in Moldavia in 1646 and ‘Making the law right with the help of God or ‘The Code of Matei Basarab, in Wallachia in 1652.



    Psychiatrist Octavian Buda, professor of the history of medicine at the Carol Davila University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Bucharest, summed up their content from the point of view of humanizing the treatment of criminals with a mental illness. I cannot say that they are either constitutional laws or criminal codes, they are very similar to some codes that regulate various activities, including those of a legal nature. What I find remarkable is that these books theorize the fact that the presence of a mental illness means that a criminal can only be punished after an evaluation of those symptoms. And the sentences that refer to this aspect are the paragraphs that are called ‘glave translated as headings. One of these headings goes as follows: ‘when one is unaware of ones madness and out of ones mind, and consequently the father kills the son, one shall not be scolded because there is no bigger punishment than being mad and out of ones mind. It is a conceptualization of a medical aspect that is the subject of a medical safety measure.



    The 18th century was a century of modern reforms in the West. The Romanian Principalities were under the Phanariot rule, and the wave of reforms also reached the principalities: There were Phanariot leaders that put together specific legislation. Alexandru Ipsilanti made a ‘Pravilnicească Condică – Code of Rules in 1780. At the beginning of the 19th century, Callimachi and Caragea had already issued their codes of 1817. The Phanariotes had a practice of bringing doctors from abroad to get involved in medical activities. Those were the dawns of Romanian modernity, with the first period 1800-1850 still being a period with challenges from the point of view of knowledge.



    Modernization was advancing by leaps and bounds, and the Organic Law of the early 1830s continued what had been previously begun: The Organic Law did at least two things. First of all, it created an entity called the Doctors Commission, which later became the College of Physicians, and organized those aspects related to the standardization of medical practice. A kind of unrestricted practice license was created. In the sense that not any doctor was allowed to mess around, to come with a couple of tins and bones and produce a holistic treatment. There were expatriate doctors of Italian and Greek origin who had also traveled a lot during the Phanariot era. And the main idea was for this ‘imported elite to be able to communicate at least acceptably with a rural population that was rather reticent about these professional categories that they did not understand.



    After laws and regulations, treatment facilities also appeared. One of the first such facilities or institutions was the Mărcuța mental institution.



    Octavian Buda is back at the microphone with details: In 1838, during the time of Alexandru Ghica, something interesting from an institutional point of view happened. The Mărcuța facility appeared under the following circumstances: a part of the monastery came out of the church jurisdiction and became part of the then Home Affairs Ministry or the Interior Ministry. That’s where they started treating the psychiatric patients, in the modern sense that we still have today. The first doctor at Mărcuța institution was Dr. Minis, of Greek origin, who had studied in Leipzig. He was followed by Nicolae Gănescu who had studied in Kharkiv. He reorganized the psychiatric activity in the modern sense, as it was around the year 1850. He was concerned not so much with occupational therapy as with humane treatments because physical restraint methods such as tying were used at the time. He used woolen straps that did not hurt the patient. He also brought an electromagnetic device, but we don’t know what he did with it. Then followed the era of Alexandru Suțu, from the Phanariot family, who had studied in Athens and Paris. He took over the management of the Mărcuța hospital and remained at the helm of the institution for many years. He is the doctor who published in 1877 the book called ‘The Alienated before medicine and society, which is practically the first treatise on social and judicial psychiatry.



    After Romania became an independent state in 1878, it developed appropriate health and legal policies. And psychiatry will be an expanding medical specialty. (LS)

  • The Phanariote Rule of the Romanian Principalities

    The Phanariote Rule of the Romanian Principalities

    Members of these families were to become rulers of the Romanian Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia. Romanticism has presented the Phanariote century as fraught with corruption and decadence, but historians nowadays believe the period was a cultural one mainly characterized by searches and quests.


    The Phanariotes were members of rich families belonging to the Greek aristocracy in Istanbul. The Phanariotes used to control the Ecumenical Patriarchate also serving mainly as translators in the higher Ottoman administration. From a cultural point of view the Phanariote rule was the period during which the Oriental lifestyle and its mores entered the regions inhabited by the Romanians concurrently with the consolidation of the Orthodox Christianity. The Phanariote epoch starts in mid-17th century and some historians have described it as an Oriental correspondent of the Baroque.



    The Phanariotes officially appeared in Romanias history in 1711 after Moldavias ruler, prince Dimitrie Cantemir had taken refuge in Russia. Another Romanian principality, Wallachia got its Phanariote ruler five years later, in 1716. The Phanariotes ruled the two Romanian principalities for more than 100 years.



    Romanticism has blamed the absence of political reforms in the Romanian society and the lack of economic progress on the Phanariote rule. However, the new national elites were recruited from among the Phanariotes. These elites would soon play a key role in the modernization and emancipation of the Romanian society. Historian Georgeta Penelea-Filiti has more on the peoples perceptions of the Phanariote legacy, which officially disappeared after Tudor Vladimirescus Revolution of 1821.



    Georgeta Penelea-Filiti: “Unpublished surveys on Romanias history have revealed peoples great interest in two epochs. One is the ancient time, when these territories were part of the Roman Empire and inhabited by two peoples, the Dacians and the Romans. Next in importance is the Phanariote period. The ancient history is seen as a glorious one, whereas the time when the Romanian Principalities were under the Phanariote rule has been sharply criticised. The evils of the Romanian society are seemingly rooted in the Phanariote period. Of course its human nature to blame it on the other guy. People often need a scapegoat, someone to hold responsible for what is happening and find excuses for what they actually do. But this negative image isnt something new, it appeared back in the time of the Romantic historiography promoted by Balcescu and Kogalniceanu and there were even Greek historians who also laid the blame on the Phanariotes. And thats how we got a completely negative picture. In late 19th Century though, the outstanding historian Nicolae Iorga made an attempt to explain how things actually were.



    The capital cities of the two principalities, Bucharest and Iasi respectively, were two oriental capitals typical of that time. The few iconographic sources dating back to the 18th Century describe them as boasting mostly small-size houses and a number of churches, stretching on the banks of rivers of little importance. In the following century the two capitals acquired more of an urban identity, while Bucharests importance as a city started to grow. Wallachias capital is representative of that time as it was the biggest city in the area and an economic centre of the region. After 1800, Bucharest was the place where the political interests of European powers such as France and England met. The early 19-Century Bucharest was a mixture of ethnicities, social categories, reforms, institutions in the making and also an increasingly important economic centre. The elites were trying to agree on a form of state and to win the support of the Great Powers. The city of Iasi, Moldavias capital, was, to a large extent, similar to Bucharest.



    The Romanian historiography, in the 200 years that we refer to, generally had negative interpretations of the Phanariote rulers and their history. In the last few years, however, some authors have revised this attitude and have looked at that period more objectively.



    Georgeta Penelea Filiti believes its time we reconsidered the Romanian 18th Century history: “Tudor Dinu does not plan to either praise or criticize the Phanariote rulers, but simply present all aspects of Bucharests history. When you analyze the 18-Century Phanariote period of Bucharest, you acknowledge the presence, influence, and contribution of those Greeks. Why is that? Because there was a number of dynamic elements in the Romanian space, such as the Greeks, the Jews and the Armenians. Of them, Romanians were closest to the Greeks. This strong connection between Romanians and Greeks was consolidated during that time. Merchants, trade, Bucharests market were some of the meeting points of some unexpected currents of thought. Above all these, there were the Phanariote rulers. This is a balanced and fair picture of that period, which is new for a lot of people.



    Romania got separated from Phanar almost two centuries ago. Its heritage is still under scrutiny and the various opinions on it are nothing but a sign of maturity and detachment.