Radio România Internațional

Category: RRI Encyclopaedia

  • The Guban Factory

    The Guban Factory

    Pre-war and inter-war Romania
    managed to develop its own stars, products made locally in workshops and
    factories. Among them, the Guban brand held pride of place. It managed to
    preserve its reputation after the creation of the communist regime, and
    remained an exception until 1989. We’ve talked about the history of shoe-making
    and shoe polish produced by Guban factories with Marius Cornea, a curator with
    the Museum of Banat in Timişoara.


    Guban is a brand that was
    named after Blaziu Guban, born in Bihor County in the Austro-Hungarian Empire
    in 1904, in the countryside. Blaziu was a poor kid. He was adopted by a family
    from Oradea. He only graduated the first 5 grades. Before the First World War,
    he worked as a caretaker at a pig farm. Then he got hired at a local shoe
    factory in Oradea, where he developed an interest in combing chemical
    substances and materials. The Guban shoe polish was invented by Blaziu Guban in
    1935, during his time in Timișoara. In
    1932, the manager of a shoe factory in Timișoara invited Blaziu Guban to join
    his team. 1935 was the year when the fate of the Guban brand was decided. It was
    then that Blaziu came up with the recipe for the shoe polish. It was only later,
    in 1937, that he registered the Guban Brand with the Trade Register, alongside
    two other associates, under the name the Guban Timișoara Chemical Factories. The
    polish guaranteed the maintenance of leather shoes. What is interesting is that,
    in order to make his shoe polish known, Blaziu Guban called a factory in Timișoara
    that delivered tin boxes engraved with his name. In the first phase, Blaziu
    gave the boxes to employees, his associates and friends, who in turn advertised
    this kind of shoe polish.


    For
    the postwar generations, the Guban name didn’t just stand for shoe polish, but
    shoes themselves, mixing comfort and style in a locally-made product unlike any
    other in the communist era. Marius Cornea gave us more details:


    Of
    course, Romania knows the Guban brand particularly from the prospect of its
    shoe line. But the history of shoe-making started only in 1959. In 1948, when
    factories and enterprises across Romania were nationalized, Blaziu was the only
    factory owner from the former regime who, owing to his personal connection with
    Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, the communist leader at the time, managed to hold on to
    his factory until 1952, when he was forced to relinquish both the Guban name, and
    his factory in favor of the state. Communist authorities promised, however, to
    keep him in charge until the end of his days. This is a notable exception in
    the history of Romanian factories at the time. So, until 1978, the year of his
    death, Guban remained the director of his factory.


    The
    first shoes were produced at the factory in Timișoara in 1959. The design
    combined the elegance of dress shoes with the comfort of every-day shoes.
    Another feature was synthetic leather, invented by Blaziu’s son, Tiberiu, which
    imitated crocodile and snake leather. The shoes grew very popular very fast, not
    just among ordinary Romanians, but also among international personalities. Marius
    Cornea is back on the microphone.


    There
    was an entire marketing policy. The Ceaușescu family, Nicolae and Elena, were regular
    clients of the Guban factory in Timișoara. Elena Ceaușescu was known for her preference
    of the Guban brand. She usually wore brownish, greenish or pink shoes. The boot
    tree used by Elena Ceaușescu was on permanent display in an exhibition at the
    Maria Terezia Bastion in Timișoara, an exhibition that displayed most local
    brands to official delegations over 1970-1980. In the same exhibitions you
    could admire shoes ordered by actresses such as Sophia Loren or Gina Lollobrigida.
    What is interesting is the fact that the exhibition also showed shoes ordered
    by Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej and poet Tudor Arghezi.


    After
    1989, the factory in Timișoara underwent a broad process of restructuring,
    alongside most of Romanian industry. Still, the prestige of the Guban brand was
    not forgotten. (VP)







  • Political prisoners in Ploiesti between 1948 and 1964

    Political prisoners in Ploiesti between 1948 and 1964

    About 350 political detainees, mentioned in official documents, appear in the archives of the town of Ploieşti, an important industrial and oil center, especially in the first half of the twentieth century. Most of these people were arrested, imprisoned, tried and tortured in the citys iconic buildings, which ordinary people passed by every day without suspecting anything. Starting from the history of the place, but also from the need to know the tragedies that his hometown went through, historian Lucian Vasile wrote the book “The ones we forgot. The communist repression in Ploieşti (1948 – 1964).“



    The detainees presented in the book were selected based on their connection with the town of Ploiesti. At the time of their arrest they either lived in Ploiești and belonged to that community, or were investigated by the local political police and imprisoned there. But regardless of that, their tragedy is the same as that of all victims of the communist regime, a regime eager to annihilate real or imagined enemies, based on accusations that were most times invented. Historian Lucian Vasile tells us more about the political prisoners in Ploiesti: ”They were from all social categories. This seemed to me the most interesting thing because almost half of the political prisoners were from the working class or were poor or middle-class peasants, that is, exactly the categories that the regime claimed to represent. This shows, in fact, the degree of rejection or attachment of the Romanian community to the regime imposed after the Second World War. Most of the detainees were young because they were seen as the most open to doing what they were asked. They had no family obligations and no children, something that usually influences the way people respond to pressure.”



    Unfounded accusations, abusive arrests, no official indictment or trial, but most of all, torture and inhumane conditions of detention have made many prison survivors reluctant to talk about what happened to them. For some of the survivors in Ploieşti, Lucian Vasile was the one who took on the writing of their story. One of the most impressive people was Martha Koppes who, in the early 1950s, had an extremely interesting meeting with the Securitate, the former political police. Lucian Vasile: ”Martha Koppes was, in my opinion, the bravest woman I met in my research. She was not the only one with an impressive story, but she had a great personality. She did not go to prison, but she came from a mixed Romanian-Dutch family, her father being an important industrialist from Ploiești. In the 1940s, while living in Bucharest with her husband, she was contacted by the Securitate and her collaboration was discussed. She was forced to collabotare, for the sake of her parents, who were already old, wanted to leave the country and had already been harassed by the political police. Martha, in particular, was supposed to keep everything a secret. She was supposed to provide information from the Dutch Embassy where she had been working for two years, but she managed to make it look like she was playing the Securitate game without actually doing it, in order to get her parents out of the country. Some unusual circumstances pushed her into the arms of the Securitate and she had to sign a very atypical commitment, which she later denied. She eventually managed to leave the country and so have her parents. Unfortunately, she could not win the whole game, as her husband remained captive in Romania and they eventually got separated because of the distance.”



    Given that many of the political detainees in Ploieşti, in the first years of communism, were young people or students, they could not escape the hardest experience of that time: the re-education that started at the Pitesti penitentiary and later spread to other detention centers. The detainees were forced to torture each other, to denounce all their previous beliefs and the people close to them. This also happened in the late 1940s to some students from Ploieşti who had printed anti-communist manifestos. Lucian Vasile tells us what happened to them once they were imprisoned in Pitesti: ”Everything turns upside down so many times that you dont know what is normal and what is abnormal, who is the victim and who is the aggressor. But this is also a story of survival and trust because even in those absolutely terrible conditions the four friends still trusted each other and refused to hit each other.”



    Released under a pardon decree in 1964, most of the detainees in Ploieşti and other prisons, continued to be monitored and harassed by the Securitate until the fall of the communist regime. (EE)




  • Geopolitics in the inter-war years in Romania

    Geopolitics in the inter-war years in Romania


    Europa is a continent of cultures and nations created
    by the Greek and Latin world and by Christianity afterwards. It is the most
    widely-accepted definition of Europe as it was laid out by most of those who
    wrote about Europe, in a bid to decipher its secrets. In time, the
    aforementioned cultural values made it possible for the geographical distances
    to shrink. Nations lying quite afar from one another or even at the farther end
    of the map discovered themselves mutually and even came closer to one another,
    whenever historical circumstances allowed it. Even though they were part of the
    same Eastern European Soviet Bloc for 45 years, Romania and Estonia belong to
    different geo-cultural areas, to South-eastern and Northern Europe,
    respectively. Between 1500 and 1878, Romania was under the influence of the
    Ottoman Empire. In turn, Estonia, between 1560 and 1710 was part of Poland and
    Sweden, and part of Tsarist Russia, between 1710 and 1918.


    Throughout the years, Romanians’ contacts with the
    Estonians were scarce, and that for a good reason. Very few people travelled
    from one place to another before the emergence of the railroad in the 19th
    century. The privilege of traveling was for a limited number of professional
    categories. They were the merchants, the diplomats and the military. To that
    end, the mutual knowledge of the nations was superficial or existed hardly at
    all. A century of Romanian – Estonian diplomatic relations has been marked as of
    late. Doru Liciu is Head of the Foreign Affairs Ministry’s diplomatic archives.

    Dr Doru Liciu:


    As early as the mid-19th
    century, Romanian travellers reached Estonia, while Estonian travellers reached
    the Romanian Principalities, via various organizations belonging to the former
    Russian empire. Once the Russian Empire was dismantled, Estonia proclaimed its
    independence in 1918, an undertaking Romania acknowledged immediately
    afterwards. In 1921, the diplomatic relations were decided, between the two
    countries. Contacts between the two countries dated from the previous
    historical period, even earlier, from World War One, when part of the Russian
    troops that fought in Romania were made of soldiers and officers coming from
    the Baltic countries.


    There was indeed a Romanian personality who, even
    before World War One, had strong ties with Estonia. He was Mari Ion Pelivan
    (1876 – 1954), a legal adviser, a columnist and a Bessarabian deputy with a
    seat in the Parliament of then Greater Romania. Pelivan would graduate from the
    University of Tartu’s Law School in 1903. The post-World War One period, known
    as the Inter-war period in Romania, brought the two nations closer to one
    another.


    However, the most significant binding element for the two
    nations was the then Soviet Union’s aggressive presence. The newly-instated
    communist power in Moscow never ceased to claim territories that were once part
    of Tsarist Russia, but which the Soviet Union had relinquished, in the wake of
    Lenin’s decision whereby each nation on the Russian territory should have the
    right to decide their own fate. Estonia,
    just like the two other Baltic countries, Lithuania and Latvia, was at that
    time building bridges with everybody. One such bridge linked Estonia to
    Bucharest.

    Doru Liciu:


    Subsequently, the two embassies were
    opened and both were functioning, in the inter-war period, in the capitals of
    the two countries. For quite a long time, services as part of the Romanian
    embassy in Estonia were provided by a resident minister in Warsaw, and from
    there, the most relevant pieces of information about Estonia were conveyed.
    Later, embassies were opened, in Tallin but also in Bucharest.


    Through the famous Molotov-Ribbentrop pact or the
    Hitler-Stalin pact signed on August 23, 1939, Eastern Europe was divided
    between Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. Ob June 16, then the USSR issued
    Estonia an ultimatum, demanding its consent for the Soviet army to be deployed
    there, and for a Pro-Soviet government to be instated. The Estonian government
    rejected the proposal and the following day, June 17, the USSR occupied the
    country and instated the communist regime. On August 16, 1940, Estonia was
    annexed to the USSR. In the same vein, nine days later, on June 26 and June 27,
    1940, the Soviet Union issued two ultimatums to Romania, demanding the
    retrocession of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina. Regimes of terror reigned
    supreme in those countries for the following 45 years. 1940 is the year when
    the Romanian-Estonian relations ceased.

    Doru Liciu:


    Unfortunately,
    the aftermath of all that was just as we know it, the Baltic States were
    brutally occupied by the Soviet Union in 1940, the same year when Romania had
    to cede part of its historical territory, which until 1812 had no connection
    whatsoever with, and was in no way part of then the Russian Empire. During the
    Soviet regime, there was no state-level contact, Estonia, as a republic, became
    part and parcel of the Soviet Union. We all know that from Estonia,
    intellectuals would come to Romania, as well as traditional ensembles, fine
    artists who had their works on display in the country. Likewise, in
    Estonia, rather seldom, but somewhat regularly, Romanians were present, coming
    from various walks of life.


    Once the communist regime was toppled in 1989 and once
    Estonia gained its independence in 1991, Romania resumed it relations with
    Estonia. Bilateral relations were enhanced especially when both states
    gained their NATO and EU accession.

    (Translation by Eugen Nasta)





  • Deceptive tactics during WW2

    Deceptive tactics during WW2

    People usually like principles and breaking them is often criticized. However, when it comes to war, resorting to decoys in order to defeat the enemy is not regarded as a negative thing. Quite the contrary, using anything that can make the enemy surrender is allowed. During WW2 Romania used deceptive tactics against the Soviet enemy that the country had been in open conflict with since 1941.



    Romania entered WW2 in the summer of 1941, having had its borders amputated a year before, in June, August and September 1940. Thus, the area around the town of Ploiesti, which was rich in oil deposits, became of outmost strategic importance, being the only source of fuel in the entire region. Defending it was vital. The original idea of defending it by means of deceptive tactics was put into practice by the German command. Mock armies and fake industrial areas were used by both sides. Photos from that time show us dummy tanks, trucks and planes and even industrial plants and cities.



    Historian Lucian Vasile with the Institute for the Investigation of Communist Crimes and the Memory of the Romanian Exile is the author of a history of the town of Ploiesti. He told us more about the military dummies created in order to divert the Russians: Those large-scale dummies and decoys were aimed at protecting the oil plants around the town of Ploiesti. The idea was first discussed in 1941. Before Romania entered the war, all possible dangers to it were only theoretical. That is why, the German troops, together with the Romanian ones, discussed about all possible defense means. Alongside bringing anti-air cannons, and installing balloons around the town, the German authorities considered building some dummies and decoys. The first fake industrial area was set up in the spring of 1941. The location was not picked randomly. It was clear that once the Barbarossa operation was initiated, the Soviets would try to attack the refineries. Attacks were to come from the east, so a fake area needed to be created to divert Soviet attackers before they reached Ploiesti.



    Such a large-scale deception needed to be both light and cheap. According to Lucian Vasile, the dummy was detailed enough to look authentic: Structures were made of wood and walls were made of fabric. They were designed to be used during the night. The dummy consisted of some wooden frames with fabric, and lights were added to draw the attention of attackers. There were also several furnaces in which all sort of things were burned, so as to give the impression that a functional refinery was there. There are no photos of it unfortunately, only written descriptions.



    These dummies, aimed to draw the attack away from the vulnerable area, were not very effective. Lucian Vasile: If it was worth the effort is still debatable, since the visual deception would have only been efficient if bombardments had taken place at night. That is why the operation was easily debunked during the first air strike that took place during the day, on June 13, 1941. The Soviets found out there was a mock industrial platform before the town of Ploiesti, meant to divert them. So the German authorities started to build a new one, in Ciorani, 20 km east from the first dummy. They used the first strategy. When the Russian aircraft was getting close, the lights in Ploiesti were turned off and the ones on the dummy were turned on. This was useful for one month, until August 18, when it was also revealed.



    The last attempt to fool the enemy came along with a change in strategy: Just like in a cat and dog game, German authorities built the third model, not in the east this time, but in the west. The Soviets were expecting to first see the dummy and then the town. Only that the Germans played the reverse game this time. The new mock building was located in Bratasanca, 17 km west of Ploiesti. The Soviet raids were minor in terms of destructive power. There were only several dozens rudimentary planes, if we compare them with what the Americans had a few years later, that is hundreds of bombardiers accompanied by hundreds of fighter jets.


    The idea of resorting to visual deceit in the area of Ploiesti was eventually abandoned, due to its high cost and low efficiency and also due to the fact that the parties involved in the conflict had perfected their science of war.



  • The city of Ploiești as remembered by its people

    The city of Ploiești as remembered by its people

    Once known as the capital of black
    gold in Romania, Ploiești, a city located just north of Bucharest, has had a
    troubled but interesting history. Thanks to the crude oil reserves on its
    outskirts, the city developed quickly beginning with the end of the 19th
    century. Large imposing buildings began to be built and the prospect of
    enrichment started to attract a variety of people, including from other
    countries, who settled in Ploiești and contributed to the local life. A recent editorial
    project from the Association for Education and Urban Development consisting of
    four volumes focuses on the recollections of people who were born and grew up
    in Ploiești but who have ended up living elsewhere. The latest book in this series
    was published recently under the title Ploieștiul amintirilor noastre (Ploiești
    in Our Recollections). Historian Lucian Vasile, who was involved in the
    project, tells us more:




    The book is a natural continuation
    of an endeavour that began five years ago. We didn’t imagine at the time that we
    would come this far, but the response from readers and those who were willing
    to share their memories and their family and personal stories was extremely
    positive. The latest book in the series continues some of the stories from
    previous books and also contains texts from new contributors. The authors come
    from different backgrounds, have different professions, are of different ages
    and write about different places and periods. The stories cover almost an
    entire century of the city’s history and the whole city, from its outskirts,
    where the oil refineries are located, to what has remained of the historical centre.




    The latest collective volume
    dedicated to Ploiești contains the contributions of 11 authors, some of whom
    also contributed to the previous volumes and who belong to inter-war, post-war
    and contemporary generations. Historian Lucian Vasile is back with more details
    about the different authors:




    One of them is a young man who writes
    about the city as he knew it in his childhood in the 1990s. An older author writes
    about the city’s merchants almost half a century ago, while another remembers
    what Ploiești used to be like during the communist period. The latter’s account
    is quite amusing, although it also refers to the dramatic events of 1989. The entire
    Romanian society has undergone radical changes in recent decades. For the very
    young, the stories about the 1990s sometimes seem unbelievable. They are still
    part of our recent history and a piece of the jigsaw puzzle when it comes to local
    history. History is not only about what happened hundreds of years ago or 80
    years ago, but also about what happened 20 or 30 years ago. And this is history
    we need to know about and understand in order to be able to understand our
    present.




    Apart from publishing books, the
    Association for Education and Urban Development is also involved in organising
    guided tours of the historical part of Ploiești and the urban transformations, often
    unfortunate, which they city saw during the communist period. These tours are
    popular not only with local residents, but also with people from Bucharest and
    other cities. Historian Lucian Vasile explains:




    Our tours are primarily about
    history. The stories we tell in our books and our guided tours complement the
    information provided by local museums. As a matter of fact, Ploiești has some excellent
    museums which are different from the museums in other parts of the country in
    terms of theme. I’m thinking about the Clock Museum and the Hagi Prodan Burgher’s House Museum. The
    recent past still generates heated debate and I think Romanian society is yet
    to reach a consensus or a common, universally accepted view about its recent
    past. At the end of the day, however, it’s only natural to have different views.
    For some, the radical transformations that began in 1945 were disastrous and
    tragic, and the crimes and destruction that followed cannot be denied. For others,
    however, the same events were also an opportunity to climb the social ladder. Places
    and buildings that appeared in the wake of the destruction of historical
    heritage and which are seen by some as very ugly are considered by others to be
    an integral part of an improvement in living standards and housing in the case
    of apartment blocks. Each view has its own reasoning, and we must understand
    and accept it.




    That was historian Lucian Vasile from the Association
    for Education and Urban Development, which recently published a fourth book in
    a series dedicated to the history of the city of Ploiesti in the last 100 years
    as seen by former residents.

  • The Zambaccian museum in Bucharest

    The Zambaccian museum in Bucharest



    One of Bucharests interesting museums lies in the northern part of the city, which is actually a residential area where the development of property and the increasingly urbanized character saw their heyday in the inter-war period. The Krikor H. Zambaccian museum is venued by purpose-built premises, capable of hosting a fine art collection. The museum is the brainchild of a merchant with a special personality. He was an art aficionado, also willing to give artists a hand. Born in 1889 in Constanta, in the south-east, Krikor Zambaccian hailed from an Armenian family. He continued the merchant tradition of the family, first in his native city then in Bucharest, where he relocated in 1923. However, fins arts remined his passion throughout. Museographer with the Art Collections Museum, Ilinca Damian, provided the details.



    Ilinca Damian:



    “The family moved to Bucharest, also developing their trade in Romanias capital city. All his life Zambaccian was in the fabric printing business and in the textile material trade, in a broader sense. Apart from that, his great passion was collecting fine art objects, in principal Romanian paintings and in the subsidiary, French paintings. Zambaccian discovered his passion for art when he was a student in Paris. In between accounting and economics courses he found the time to visit art galleries and museums, also taking part in conferences and debates. That is how Zambaccian became a self-made man in the field of fine arts. He succeeded to befriend some of the French artists, such as Henri Matisse. When he returned to Romania, he also befriended the Romanian artists of his generation. Gradually, Krikor Zambaccian began to structure his collection.”



    That occurred properly after he relocated to Bucharest, in 1923. We recall that the items he had purchased before that year, in his first attempt to start a collection, got lost during World War One. The first fine art works he purchased as a collector were authored by the artists he had already befriended.



    Ilinca Damian:



    “All his life he maintained a close friendship with painter Gh. Petrascu. Every so often he would buy works created by the maestro, whom he visited on Sundays, he also had a close friendship with Th. Pallady, who visited Zambaccian in his study. Also, he was a friend of Nicolae Tonitza, temporarily, he was also a friend of Francisc Sirato. Actually, he was a friend of almost all the artists of the time, supporting them all his life to the best of his abilities. So, apart from his fine art collector activity, he also was a Maecenas of fine artists..Just like any other art collector of the time, Zambaccian knew how to add to his collection works by the so-called “forefathers of Romanian modern art”, the likes of Nicolae Grigorescu, Ion Andreescu, Ștefan Luchian, as well as Theodor Aman. The selection of Luchians paintings he purchased was acclaimed from the very beginning. Zambaccian himself did not mince his words saying he dedicated Stefan Luchian an altar, in his collection. Also, he was generous enough to pay good money for the paintings he purchased directly from the artists themselves of from other collectors. He believed a work of quality deserved being purchased for a good price, so he would always offer more money rather than start a negotiation.



    In time, Zambaccians collection was growing, so he needed proper premises for the storage and display of the paintings. In the early 1940s, Krikor Zambaccian had a house built, which had been thought out as a museum but also as lodgings. It is the building of the Zambaccian museum we can still see today.



    Ilinca Damian:



    “In 1942, works for the building had already been completed, and visiting was allowed once a week. Zambaccian had though it out it out as a museum, but he obviously lived there until the year of his death, 1962. The house was designed in the modernist style. Actually, it was a medley of styles, from the neo-Romanian to the minimalist one, also having Moorish influences. So we can say the house had rather an eclectic style, but the main trend was the modernist one quite all right. The idea of opening a museum occurred to Zambaccian as early as 1932-1933. Even before he had the house built he initiated talks with the municipality of Bucharest, but they failed to reach an agreement as to the premises where the works of art would be exhibited. The initial plan was to donate the art collection stored in the house he lived in at that time, which was obviously inappropriate for exhibiting and visiting purposes. Negotiations with the municipality had no positive outcome, yet Zambaccian was adamant in fulfilling his wish, that of creating an open-to-everybody museum. So the 1940s he had his own house built, which clearly had that purpose, and in 1947 he succeeded to donate his Romanian art collection to the state. The donation proper was completed in three stages, in 1947, 1957 and 1962, the year of his death. As we speak, the collection includes 300 works of Romanian and European painting and sculpture.”



    During the communist regime, the collection was unfortunately taken to other premises, it was a museum of several art collections, while Zambaccians house was used for purposes that were different from what the collectors initial intended. In the early 2000, in the wake of a large-scale restoration process, the collection was returned to its original building. Today, the Zambaccian residence but also the collection are open to visitors, just as their creator and initial owner wanted.


    (Translation by Eugen Nasta)




  • The history of the Romanian navy

    The history of the Romanian navy

    The Romanian military navy was established rather late, in the second half of the 19th century. We recall that back then the south-eastern province of Dobrogea was integrated into then the Romanian Kingdom in the wake of the independence war of 1877-1878. The Romanian navy evolved around an icon: the Mircea brig, designed and used, from the very beginning, as a training ship. The Mircea brig would soon become a legendary vessel. It sailed into the Romanian Black Seas territorial waters at a time when all the countrys institutions developed following a predominantly Western pattern, at once going through a process of modernization. And that included the Romanian navy.



    The legend of the Mircea brig, baptized with that name as a tribute to the medieval ruler Mircea the Elder, actually has two parts: there were in fact two vessels, which were iconic for two development stages in Romanian navy. The first ship, the original one, reached Romania in 1882. It was a brig in its own right. The second ship, which is functional to this day, was a bark-type sailboat. It was also known as Mircea, so the collective mindset associates the latter vessel with the original brig.



    Mircea Tarhoaca is the current commander of Mircea training ship.



    Mircea Tarhoaca:



    “The Mircea brig was a two-masted ship built in a shipyard nearby London. It had been used by the Royal Navy of that time as a training ship for the training of the new generations of naval officers. It was used until about the mid-1920s when those responsible realized the needs of the navy were sensibly greater, so a much bigger ship was needed, therefore todays Mircea brig was commissioned at the Hamburg shipyard, known as Blohm und Voss. The vessel is one of the four other sister ships that are still operational. Only one of them was turned into a museum, in a town in northern Germany. Each ship, that including the one were speaking about today, has had historical voyages. The present-day ship, in its 82-year old history, crossed the Atlantic Ocean three times. The first voyage was the one in 1976, when it participated in the United States Bicentennial, 200 years were celebrated since the United States Declaration of Independence had been signed. Then it was in 2004, while the last voyage we had was the one in 2009, when I took part in it myself, in my capacity as a training officer.”



    Todays training ship is a Class A bark-type sailboat. It is 43 meters tall, it has 23 sails with a spread of sails of 1,700 square meters all told. It was built between 1938 and 1939. May 17, 1939 was the day it sailed into the port of Constanta for the first time. Then, as well as now, the forepart of the ship had the image of Mircea the Elder, clad in a red blouse and a red cloak and wearing the princely crown. Generation after generation of cadets after the next has been trained on board this ship.



    Commander Mircea Tarhoaca:


    “It has been a training vessel since 1939. It saw better days, it saw worse days, sometimes, according to the course of events in history. For instance, in 1946, the ship was requisitioned by the Russians, but was given back later. It saw periods of time when it had undergone major repair and modernization works. For instance, in 1966 in the very ship yard where it was built, then in the year 2000, when repair works were performed in Braila shipyard. But each year, or something like that, the ship was placed in a shipyard and underwent modernization operations. We may be 82 years old, yet we have on-board modern equipment that meets the present demands of instruction and training for the Naval Academy students.



    The Mircea training ship has an accommodation capacity for a 200-strong crew, of which half can be cadets. In 2019, when it turned 80, the famous sailboat set sail on its initial historical voyage once again. However, this time the Mircea brig sailed from Constanta to the shipyard in Hamburg, where it was born.


  • Social life in Phanariote Bucharest

    Social life in Phanariote Bucharest

    Lasting for more than a century,
    the so-called Phanariote era is widely considered not to have been the most
    glorious period in Romanian history. The word Phanariote derives from the
    name of the Phanar district in Istanbul, which was mostly inhabited by an ethnic
    Greek community. And it was from among the members of the most prominent Greek
    families from Phanar that the Ottoman sultans appointed the rulers of Bucharest
    and Iași at a time when the Romanian countries of Wallachia and Moldavia were
    under Ottoman control. Phanariote rule began in 1714 in Moldavia and 1716 in
    Wallachia, and came to an end in 1821, and would involve the Orientalisation of
    the Danube principalities, something viewed by some commentators as a step
    backwards.




    Despite this, the Phanariote era
    was not without its merits, and some historians believe it has not been studied
    enough and that existing research sometimes misrepresents it. This is a view
    shared by Tudor Dinu, the author of an extensive work in three volumes entitled
    Bucureștiul fanariot (Phanariote Bucharest). He explains:




    It’s a highly complex issue and a
    more nuanced approach is needed. At the time, Bucharest played host to many
    battles as part of the Russo-Austrian-Turkish wars, so these were already challenging
    times. On the other hand, it was also a period of extensive development for the
    city, thanks to the actions of the Phanariote rulers. Indeed, it was during
    this time that almost the entire city was paved in wood; the first network of
    fountains was installed, providing the residents of Bucharest with fresh drinking
    water; and street lighting was introduced, starting with Podul Mogoșoaiei,
    today’s Calea Victoriei. What’s more, during this time Bucharest would also become
    the most important learning centre in all of south-eastern Europe thanks to the
    establishment of the princely academy of St. Sava.




    Although the Phanariote century marked
    the Orientalisation of Romanian culture, an influence rarely seen in the
    Romanian lands before then, this period would also be characterised by a
    process of Westernisation. This phenomenon can be explained by the fact that
    the Phanariote rulers – all of whom, as mentioned earlier, were of Greek descent
    – would act as conduits of Italian and, later, French culture in these parts,
    especially in Bucharest. The historian Tudor Dinu, the author of a book about Bucharest
    during the Phanariote era, tells us more:




    Among other things, in my research
    I discovered that it wasn’t true that the process of westernisation of the Romanian
    countries began only after 1821, when Phanariote rule came to an end. In fact, the
    process began with the first Austrian occupation after 1789 and intensified
    with the arrival of the Russian troops in Bucharest, who were stationed here between
    1806 and 1812. The Phanariotes allowed western culture to infiltrate these
    parts because their role was also to inform the Ottoman Porte of the intentions
    of the western powers. Westerners also began to settle in Bucharest in the 18th
    century, especially Germans, who came not only from Transylvania but also further
    afield. They made a fundamental contribution to the development of the city, in
    particular as building entrepreneurs, engineers and architects. It is to them
    that we owe the construction of Bucharest’s first breweries and the city’s first
    hotel. French and Italian people also came to live here at this time, as every distinguished
    family, every boyar, wanted a French tutor for their children or as a private
    secretary.




    On the subject of breweries and the
    likes, the historian Tudor Dinu describes in detail in his book what the people
    of Bucharest would do for entertainment during the 18th century:




    Every
    day, the people of Bucharest would go to taverns, where they’d see fiddlers
    perform. Some preferred cafes, where they’d smoke and play billiards, chess or checkers,
    or watch performances and acrobatics shows.Above all, they would
    indulge in political gossip. Others went to fairs, where the main entertainment
    were the swings, which were enjoyed by all the people of Bucharest, both young
    and old, even the boyars. But perhaps the most popular form of entertainment
    was a kind of sport that has since completely disappeared and is unknown today.
    The name of this sport came from the Ottoman term for ‘reed’. It involved a
    kind of face-off between two men on horseback armed with spears, which they
    would throw at their opponent, who would try to dodge them. It was by no means
    a gentle sport, being a kind of Ottoman jousting tournament. And, of course, gambling
    would also become a popular pastime and something against which the Phanariote
    rulers would fight fiercely, trying to stamp out the practice as it led to the impoverishment
    of the population.




    That
    said, the authorities did permit some forms of gambling, such as an early form
    of lottery tickets.

  • Ecaterina Vogoride

    Ecaterina Vogoride

    On January 24, 1859, the principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia united, laying the groundwork for the unity of a future Romania. What we read in history books nowadays may lead us to believe that the union was a granted fact. Historians beg to differ, though: the process was laborious, with huge amounts of uncertainty. Documents at the time show that the Romanians who worked for the union were completely dedicated, having to deal with a struggle against opposition both from abroad, as well as from within, from people opposed to it. The unionists eventually prevailed, and their victory was thanks to not only men, but also women. One of the extraordinary women that tipped the balance in favor of the union was Ecaterina Vogoride.



    Historian Alin Ciupala is a professor with Bucharest University, and author of the book Women in Romanian Society in the 19th Century. Ciupala told us that Romanian women in high society in the 19th century had a big role to play in the birth of modern Romania:



    “In the era of preparation for the Grand Union, we have to put the spotlight on the women in high circles of society. Even in the 1848 era, we have to state very clearly that the revolution in both principalities was brewed in the literary salons kept by the ladies in high society, which were a smokescreen for the preparations to enact the revolution. Poet Vasile Alecsandri would, two decades later, dedicate quite a few pages to the role that women had in supporting the 1848 revolution.”



    The great European powers came to take into consideration the possible union of Wallachia and Moldavia only after the Crimean War of 1853-1856. To this end, the supporters of the union, led by France, and its opponents, mainly the Ottoman Empire and Russia, asked Romanians to provide their opinion. Two ad-hoc assemblies were gathered to vote on the union of the two Romanian principalities. At this point, no one had any idea of how the small gesture made by Ecaterian Vogoride would have such a decisive effect on the future of Romania. She was born in 1829, the daughter of Costache Conachi, descendant of an important Moldavian noble family, and one of the founders of modern literature in Moldavia. In 1846, Ecaterina wed Nicolae Vogoride, himself a scion of a noble family, and the two had four children. The young noble lady had a nationalist education, and her husband had a political career that carried him to the position of Caimacam, meaning deputy to the ruling prince. In the crucial year 1857, Nicolae Vogoride, from his high perch, was pulling the strings on behalf of the Ottoman Empire through abuse of his position.



    Here is Alin Ciupala with details:


    “Ecaterina Vogoride would play a vital role at a decisive moments. That was the moment of preparing elections for naming the Moldavian representatives for the Ad-hoc Assembly in Iasi, the capital. The 1857 Ad-hoc Assemblies in Bucharest and Iasi were decisive, because they had to offer Western powers in favor of the union a strong argument, based in the desires of Romanians. Given that, the elections for the representatives were a major moment. If the assemblies were to be dominated, as it happened, by the unionists, the decision was to be clear. In Moldavia, with support from the Ottoman Empire, Caimacam Nicolae Vogoride, one of the three designated to rule Moldavia after the peace congress in Paris, in 1856, rigged the lists of candidates for the Ad-hoc Assembly. He simply purged the lists of candidates that were known for their unionist views. The final result was an assembly dominated by anti-union representatives. This caused a lot of headaches, because the initial project could have been overturned.”



    However, Ecaterina Vogoride could not abide by the turn of events. That is when she got involved, changing history in the process. Here is Alin Ciupala:



    “This is where our hero, Ecaterina Vogoride, wife of the Caimacam, gets a turn at the reins. She literally absconded letters sent by the Ottoman Porte to her husband, letters with instructions on how to falsify the lists of candidates. The letters were very important, because they could prove the direct meddling of the Ottoman Empire in the electoral process in Moldavia. The letters were conveyed by Ecaterina Vogoride to her friends of unionist persuasion, and they got published. A diplomatic scandal erupted, and France demanded that the lists and the elections be reviewed. As a result, fair elections were held, and the new Ad-hoc Assembly was dominated by the unionists. The assembly went on to vote in favor of the union of the Principalities.”



    The courage that Ecaterina Vogoride displayed resulted in major changes in the future of the Principalities, as well as in her personal life. In 1861, she divorced her husband, but united the two former enemy countries. Nicolae Vogorides career was wrecked as a result of the ensuing scandal, while Ecaterina moved to Italy and married Emanuele Rispoli in 1864. (CC)

  • Queen Elisabeth and King Carol I

    Queen Elisabeth and King Carol I

    Wedded in 1869, King Carol I and Queen Elisabeth, Romanias first royal couple, generally had a calm and warm marriage until the late 1890. Proof in this respect, among other things, is brought by the 2 volumes recently released by Humanitas Publishers, comprising the correspondence exchanged by the two spouses and entitled “With warm love, Elisabeth. Always faithfully yours, Carol.



    Born in Neuwied in 1843, Elisabeth sought and managed to encourage artists and arts in her new country. She was in fact keen on literature and writing easily in German, Romanian, French and English using the pen-name Carmen Sylva. It is in arts that she sought refuge after the death of her only child, princess Maria, at the age of 5, in 1874. She would express her need for maternal love years later, in her relationship with one of her ladies in waiting, Elena Văcărescu. Born into an eminent family of local noblemen and scholars and awarded twice by the French Academy for her literary skills, Elena Văcărescu was for a brief period involved in a politically unacceptable romance with Carols adopted nephew, crown prince Ferdinand, the heir to Romanias throne.



    This is actually the trigger of the correspondence between the King and the Queen included in the second volume of the book “With warm love, Elisabeth. Always faithfully yours, Carol, as historian Alina Pavelescu tells us:



    Alina Pavelescu: “This is the volume where the human dimension of the protagonists is best revealed. Their letters revolve around the scandal prompted by Prince Ferdinands romance with Elena Văcărescu. (…) The affair resulted in Queen Elisabeth being exiled for several years, and most of the correspondence dates back to this exile, a period when her perfect marriage with King Carol I experienced its biggest crisis, perhaps even bigger than the fact that the queen could no longer have children and therefore heirs to the Romanian throne. The King displays a great deal of composure and reason and patience in trying to make her understand what she had done wrong, and in the way he tries to put behind some of the most delicate and potentially unforgivable moments in his relationship with his wife.



    But what was the actual story behind Prince Ferdinands engagement to Elena Văcărescu? Romanița Constantinescu, one of the editors of the correspondence volume, explains:



    Romanița Constantinescu: “Actually that marriage was not as unlikely as it seems today, and apparently the whole situation was on the edge. Around Easter time in 1890, Ferdinand got engaged to Elena and asked the Kings permission to marry her. Although concerned with the political consequences, the King did not reject the idea out of hand, primarily out of love and respect for the Queen, who encouraged the affair, and for his nephew, the crown prince, as we learn from these letters. He left the decision to his Council of Ministers, and as we know the Council, chaired at the time by general Ioan Emanoil Florescu, did not approve the engagement.



    Romanias politicians denied the marriage in order to avoid a prospective competition for influence over the throne between the local noble families related to Elena Văcărescu. Apart from the suffering inflicted on the two lovers, this decision affected Queen Elisabeth as well, who was forced into exile in several European countries, to return to Bucharest only in 1894. Silvia Irina Zimmermann, the other editor of the correspondence volume, tells us more about the Queens exile:



    Silvia Zimmermann: “These are not only the letters of a queen, but also the letters of a skilled writer and fine artist. We thought that period had been a bleak time, a break with literature, but the letters tell us something else. Queen Elisabeth spent her exile years in Italy, in Venice and Palanzza, until June 1892, and at her mothers estate in Neuwied until the end of July 1894. In one letter, the Queen tells her husband she was so ill and upset that she lost all inspiration and drive for writing. However, her exile years were particularly productive both in terms of literature and in terms of decorative arts, with some of the most outstanding works still on display in Romanian museums. During these years, Queen Elisabeth worked on 3 poetry volumes and 2 plays, published under the pen-name Carmen Sylva between 1891 and 1893.



    Also during those years, the Queen started writing a number of texts which, after her return to Romania, were included in her memoirs and in her fairy tale collections. In other words, Queen Elisabeth was able to convert the trials of her exile into works of art. (tr. A.M. Popescu)

  • Rudimentorum cosmographicorum Ioan Honteri Coronensis libri

    Rudimentorum cosmographicorum Ioan Honteri Coronensis libri

    The Alba Iulia National
    Union Museum’s old books collection boasts a most precious item, a rather
    recent purchase made by the institution. It is a book titled     Rudimentorum
    cosmographicorum Ioan Honteri Coronensis     libri. The author is Transylvanian
    humanist Johannes Honterus. We recall Honterus was an iconic figure of the
    humanism and of the Lutheran Reformation in Transylvania in the 16th
    century. The first printed edition of the volume was brought out in 1546. The
    book has been reprinted many times ever since.


    Johannes Honterus was born in
    1498 in Kronstadt, which is the old German name of Brasov. Honterus died in
    Brasov also, in 1549, at the age of 51. His intellectual and editorial activity were
    intense, and so was his activity as a teacher. In 1522, Honterus earned his Magister
    Artium (Master of the Arts) degree from Vienna University. In 1530 Honterus had
    a teaching stint with the Krakow University, where he published his early
    works, a description of the world and a grammar of Latin. Honterus then relocated
    to Basel, where he learned the crafts of wood engraving and printing. In
    Switzerland, Honterus would print the famous Atlas of Transylvania, Chorographia Transylvaniae
    Sybembürgen in Latin. In 1533 Honterus returned to his native town where he was elected as a
    member of the local council. In Brasov, Honterus is the founder of one of
    Transylvania ‘s first printing presses. Then Honterus would print, among other
    books, The Reformation booklet for Brasov and the Barsa Country, The Apology
    and The Regulations for the use of the churches of all Germans in Transylvania.
    The three volumes stipulated the main tenets of the Evangelical reform for the
    Transylvanian Saxon churches under the influence of Lutheranism. In Brasov, in
    1546, due to Honterus’s endeavour, the region’s first paper factory was
    founded.


    The volume titled Rudimentorum
    cosmographicorum Ioan Honteri Coronensis libri has had quite an adventure,
    from an antiquarian in Wellington, in New Zealand, to Alba Iulia in Romania. Florin
    Bogdan is a museographer specializing in old rare books. Florin Bogdan:


    This book is in fact a pocket atlas. Everyone knows Honterus had a special
    interest in Geography, and not only in that. The first printed edition was
    brought out in Krakow in 1530. This one is a version of the book that was
    sensibly enriched by Honterus along the way, since several maps have been added
    to it. What we have actually is an unnumbered, 30-leaf book, that means 60
    pages, where the text proper of the book is laid out. Honterus describes the
    world as it was known at that time, in verse. The last part of the book is made
    of 14 leaves, unnumbered, they are actually plates with maps. First off, the Earth
    is being presented, just as cartographers and geographers used to know it in
    mid-16th century, then various regions are presented, with emphasis laid on Europe since it was the best-known part of the Globe at that
    time.


    Rudimentorum
    cosmographicorum has seen numerous printed editions. Florin Bogdan explains:


    Given that
    there are many editions that were brought out after the first printed edition,
    the one in Krakow in 1530, we can surmise the editions were somewhat limited, and
    so were the reprints of the book. It was also reprinted in Basel as well as in
    Zurich, in Brasov or in Bratislava, which means it was in fact extremely sought
    after. Nobody would print a book every two years unless that book is extremely
    sought after. In Zurich alone, the city where the copy was printed and which
    was purchased by the National Union Museum in Alba Iulia, from 1546, when the
    first printed edition was brought out, and until 1564, 7 editions of the book
    were printed. Now, speaking about this 1564 edition, according to the
    specialised Hungarian bibliography, there are 15 copies of the book. Similarly,
    the critical edition, if you will, of the work, which was brought out in 2017
    and which was based on the 1542 edition, printed in Brasov, provides a
    repertoire of all editions of Rudimentorum cosmographicorum.


    Through this volume, Honterus
    travelled as far as New Zealand, just as he himself would have liked to do, since he was passionate about Geography. From that remote destination, here we are,
    with the volume travelling all its way back to Romania, to the author’s
    birthplace. Florin Bogdan:


    It was
    purchased from an antiquarian’s in Wellington. We identified the book in an
    antiquarians’ database and we had an intense exchange of messages with that
    antiquarian’s afterwards. In the old days, the circulation of a book was not
    that easy to trace, yet we can hypothesize that in various respects, based on
    some hand-written notes that can still be seen of the leaves of the book.
    Somewhere around the 18th century the book was in the possession of
    someone who was conversant in Greek, he left an ownership signature somewhere.
    Unfortunately, that ownership signature can only be seen partially since the
    last part of the name of that person was close to the book spine. The moment
    the book was bound for the second time around, at least two letters
    disappeared, from that person’s name. We can also hypothesize that, if we take
    into account the fact that there was another note in the book, telling us about
    the discovery of America by Columbus in 1492. It is a note made in English,
    which clearly leads us into thinking that at one point the volume was in an
    English-speaking milieu. We can surmise that the volume was in England, or in even
    in the USA, or, why not, even in Australia.


    The book’s conservation condition
    is satisfactory. According to Florin Bogdan, the volume does not need any
    restoration interventions. The exhibit will be put to good use also through
    digitization, and not only because it will be exhibited. Its conservation will
    not be affected, longer term.

  • Filantropia hospital in Bucharest, past and present

    Filantropia hospital in Bucharest, past and present


    The first medical institution in Bucharest was established by boyar Mihai Cantacuzino in 1704. Its name was the Coltea hospital. A hundred years later, another hospital was established in Bucharest, a modern institution for its times, the Filantropia/Philanthropy hospital. It was mainly tailored for the needy, hence its name, Filantropia. Today, the medical establishment is one of the capital citys landmarks in terms of medical standards. The hospital boasts the oldest maternity and one of the leading obstetrics and gynecology centers. It is also a period, listed edifice. It all started with a physician schooled in the West, who was keen on contributing to the building of a new country. With details on that, here is historian Adrian Majuru:



    “His name was Constantin Caracas, he was of Aromanian origin and was fresh from his studies abroad, returning to a very complicated country, back then known as Wallachia, and which was under Ottoman suzerainty. It al happened somewhere around 1800. And Caracas returned to an almost exclusively oriental city, Bucharest, that is, where the word sosea, road didnt even exist in the urban vocabulary, not to mention medical or healing terms. Nevertheless, for that time we can say a reforming class of boyars existed, and they oftentimes used their fortune as a guarantee, so that a new country project could be implemented, which included a reformed of the healthcare system, in an incipient form. And this minority, through its small-scale projects, fought for a greater final project, namely the modernisation of Romania, they helped Constantin Caracas establish a hospital he named Filantropia, Philanthropy, that is the love of people. He got promoted and was appointed the towns physician in 1804 and initiated the building of the hospital somewhere around 1811 and 1815, it was subsequently restored a little bit since 1816, following the model of the hospitals in Vienna. So from the very beginning it was a pavilion-style hospital with its buildings placed in the midst of a garden, just as it can still be seen today. It was also Caracas who set up a regulations system, a modern one, for the organization and functioning of a hospital, in 1817. As for the building proper of the hospital, it was possible through public subscription beginning 1810, with the project having the support, financially and logistically, of boyar Grigore Baleanu who donated the plot of land but who also offered money and provided construction materials. But he was also helped by Russian general Kutuzov who at that time was administering the Romanian principalities during the Russian-Turkish war.”



    The chosen area for the new hospital lay outside the city as it then was, very close to the citys northern barrier. Subsequently, behind the hospital, on the greenfield there, even a peripheral neighborhood came into being, a slum/mahala, as it was known back then, a place of dubious reputation and with a lowly social status. However, the slum/mahala had its charm, and in time it got developed, yet very few things today speak of its distant past. Save for the Filantropia hospital, obviously. Historian Adrian Majuru:



    “It was basically an uninhabited area at the time when Dumitru Caracas initiated his project. Only a fountain could be found there, built by ruling prince Mavrogheni some two years prior to the building of the hospital, and where, in time, a church was built, also named Mavrogheni. After the hospital was completed, somewhere around 1833, the first leg was built, of the road known as Kiseleff today. Back then it lay on the outskirts of the city, and was designed as an area for promenade or relaxation. The inhabited slum/mahala lay a little bit farther and was known as the Devils Slum/Mahalaua Dracului, revolving around an inn. It was a halting place placed ahead of the entrance to Bucharest where all sorts of merchants put up, who were travelling from the nearby villages to sell their merchandise. They spent the night there, before they entered Bucharest, since in the past, in todays Victory Circus, one of the barriers of the city could be found. There people were checked for their ID, were asked about their time why spent in Bucharest and were handed a stamped certificate so they could sell their stuff in the closest marketplace. That happened before World War One, in a bid to control peoples transit through Bucharest, somehow.”



    When Constatin Caracass project took off, Bucharest had two other hospitals, Coltea and Saint Panteilimon. Here is historian Adrian Majuru once again, this time telling us how the three hospitals operated. Adrian Majuru:



    “The Filantropia hospital is part of the early generation of modern hospital establishments in Bucharest. Since 1832, the hospital was under the administration of the Board of Civil Hospitals/Eforia Spitalelor Civile, a groundbreaking entity at that time, some sort of privately-managed NGO which was functional prior to the Healthcare Ministry in line, which came into being after World War One. Three medical establishments operated under the administration of the Board: the Coltea and Panteleimon hospitals, as well las the Filantropia/Philanthropy hospital, which means the love of men. As for the establishments, they did not include the hospital alone, they also had other kinds of property and plots of land that were donated such as farmland, oilfields and forests. So they had all sorts of property, even in Bucharest, which were capitalized on as they were rented out. So those areas generated hefty revenues, apart from the income generated by the administration of the medical services on offer.”



    The Filantropia Hospital became a maternity hospital in late 19th century. The new building was erected between 1881 and 1883. The architecture of the central pavilion as it is still seen today dates from that time. Additions or changes that were made in time resulted in todays architecture, which is pleasant and easy to recognize by most of Bucharest city dwellers. In 1891, related to the maternity hospital, a school was founded, for specialized nurses. In the 1920s, Filantropia also became a University Clinic. The hospital was deprived of its properties since they were nationalized during the communist regime. Notwithstanding, the hospital continued its medical performance at a high standard to this day.




  • Representative buildings of the 1930s in Bucharest

    Representative buildings of the 1930s in Bucharest

    The
    modern history of the capital of Romania starts with the second half
    of the 19th century, around 1850, when it turns from an
    Oriental into a European city. Looking at a map or a drawing
    depicting the city over 150 years ago, one would hardly be able to
    recognize it. This is because the Old City, former commercial
    quarters, with a few medieval churches, only vaguely sketch the old
    capital of Wallachia.

    The
    history of Bucharest crosses three periods of great transformation.
    The first is during the reign of King Carol I, between 1866 and 1914.
    The second was during the reign of King Carol II, in the 1930s, while
    the third was during the rule of communist ruler Nicolae Ceausescu,
    in the 1980s.

    King
    Carol II was the most controversial sovereign of the four that
    Romania had. With a strong personality, intelligent, but also full of
    flaws and weaknesses, Carol II managed to transform Bucharest in
    conformity with the needs of the capital, and the architecture trends
    of the time. Carol II’s reign, between 1930 and 1940, was one of
    grand projects, recalling those of his forebear, Carol I. His father
    Ferdinand I’s reign, between 1914 and 1927, covered WWI and the
    consolidation of the newly formed country, Greater Romania, by
    uniting, in 1918, most of territories inhabited by Romanians. The
    1920s were years of integration and recovery after the war. Only in
    the 1930s did Romania manage to resume grand development projects,
    one of them being Bucharest itself. During the reign of Carol II,
    building roads across the country and state and culture institution
    buildings were a priority.

    Construction
    engineer, professor, and academician Nicolae Noica is the director of
    the Romanian Academy Library. He reviewed for us a few notable
    buildings that Bucharest owes to controversial ruler Carol II. The
    list has to begin with the royal residence itself:

    The
    first building would be the Royal Palace. On the night of December
    7th to the 8th, a conflagration consumed the
    entire central part of the palace. Consolidation of the foundations,
    and the resistance structure, was made by engineer Pragher. After
    1932, building works were done for the central section, which ended
    with a reception report for the Royal Palace. I found that report.
    Then, in 1938, building started for the wing that faces the Atheneum,
    which went on until 1940. It is remarkable that the 1940 earthquake
    did not damage the building.

    The
    projects continued at an alert pace. Institutions for a state that
    doubled in size in 1918 needed bigger buildings. Here is Nicolae
    Noica:

    Another
    important building was the headquarters of the Foreign Ministry, now
    the seat of government. This building was designed by Duiliu Marcu,
    while the reinforced concrete buildings were done by engineer
    Gheorghiu between 1937 and 1938. That was the old foreign ministry
    building. The new National Bank palace was done at a time when an
    urban design study was being run, when the Higher Technical Council
    analyzed all the changes in alignment in the area. The public utility
    decree issued by King Carol II expropriated those areas.

    King
    Carol II lives in history as a great supporter of culture. The
    Academy was no exception to the list of institutions he encouraged.
    Noica mentioned the very building of the institution he leads:

    Another
    impressive building is the building of the Romanian Academy Library.
    For the first time, after in 1931 Professor Duiliu March had
    submitted to the Academy the project for one of the sections of the
    library building, between 1935 and 1937 they built this remarkable
    edifice, with work led by engineer Ioanovici. The inauguration, on 5
    June 1937, was attended by the king himself, who insisted to be
    present at the Academy session when they made Lucian Blaga a member.

    On
    one of the big boulevards of Bucharest we find another grand building
    erected during the reign of Carol II, the headquarters of the
    National Archives. To the west, close to Cotroceni Palace, the
    presidency building, we find the Military Academy, a monument in the
    Bauhaus style. Here is Nicolae Noica:

    Another
    representative building is the Patrimony of the Official Registry,
    today the National Archives, across from Cismigiu Park. The Higher
    School of War, today the Military Academy, was built between 1937 and
    1939. The main body of the Higher School of War was built on a
    length of 120 meters, and has 3,650 sqm. The entire building was
    erected in just two years. The work was led by engineer Emil Pragher,
    a great personality.

    We
    may also put on the short list the Institute of Agricultural
    Research, the Village Museum, the Triumphal Arch of Bucharest, the
    royal residence in Scrovistea, the Fire Tower Castle in Sinaia, and
    the Orthodox cathedrals of Cluj, Medias, and Timisoara.

  • The estate of Bratianu family in Florica

    The estate of Bratianu family in Florica


    The Florica estate is located around 100 kilometers north-west
    of Bucharest. It is one of the best-known such estates across the country.
    Proof of that stands the personality of those who created the estate and lived
    there afterwards. We’re speaking about the Bratianu family. It is a most
    distinguished family, which for two generations had been actively taking part
    in the making of modern Romania. Ion C. Brătianu and his
    brother, Dumitru, were members of the generation of the 1848 Revolution, also
    contributing to Moldavia’s Union with Wallachia in 1859. Their sons, Ion I. C. Bratianu,
    Dinu Bratianu and Vintila Bratianu were leading representatives of the 1918
    generation, which among other things, had an important contribution to the
    emergence of Greater Romania.


    There
    is a story behind the origins of the Florica estate. Historian Narcis-Dorin Ion documented that story. The
    foundation of the estate was laid by Dinca Bratianu, the father of the future
    great politician Ion I.C Bratianu. Ion I.C Bratianu inherited the Florica and Samburesti estates. Back in the day
    Ion I.C Bratianu also bought the adjoining vineyard, known as Floreasca. The
    vineyard would be Ion I. C Bratianu’s concern until he died, vineyard he would
    tend to and exploit.

    Historian Narcis Dorin Ion gives us the details.


    Ion C. Brătianu would build a
    first house in Florica in 1858, and here is how his nephew, the poet Ion
    Pillat, reminisced about it, in 1943: ‘where the old cellar and wine-cellar of the
    Brancoveanu vineyard once stood, a plot of land that later was the property of
    Dinca Bratianu, his son, Ion C. Bratianu, would build a simple,
    two-storey winegrower’s house, which also had an open terrace, back then. The gazebo remained in a primitive state until the old
    man’s death. That house in Florica, an old one, where I also spent part of my
    childhood, there was something quiet and traditional about it, something that
    never vanished form my soul.’


    Initially,
    the house was a modest lodging placed in the middle of the vineyard. From a
    three-room house and a wine cellar, in time, Ion I.C. Bratianu built a storied
    mansion and an open terrace. In August 1865, the house in Florica had ten
    rooms, but Bratianu was well aware of the fact that the lodgings still failed
    to provide the amenities he would have liked for his family, which had many
    children, all of them living in Bucharest. In 1877 the Florica railway station
    was inaugurated, so travelling form the capital city Bucharest became a lot
    easier.


    Historian Narcis-Dorin Ion:


    In a letter he sent to his wife,
    Pia, in 1871, Bratianu described the home in Florica as follows: ‘then I calmed
    down and I got myself seated in the smaller parlor. The room seemed big to me.
    From the little parlor, when I looked at the great parlor, I felt as if I were
    somewhere in the palaces in Germany which, being deserted, seemed to me the
    most spacious I had ever seen.’.


    Whenever
    he had his short holidays in Florica, Bratianu liked to be there all by
    himself, with his thoughts and with the passion he had for the vineyard and the
    livestock. In 1869, Bratianu confessed to his wife about what that place meant
    for him, it is the sheer sweetness of a home, since it is only here
    that I feel I am at home, with us. In Bucharest, despite all the amenities we
    have there, I feel like I am in a high-standard hotel, but nothing more than
    that .


    As
    long as he lived, the house had an austere style, imposed by his
    simple taste. Towards the end of his life, his son, Ionel, found it really hard
    to persuade him to make some changes, since Ionel was so passionate about
    constructions.

    Historian Narcis-Dorin Ion:


    The great changes occurred in 1905-1912 and 1924-1925,
    following architect Petre Antonescu’s plans. To this day, thanks to their
    lavish interior decoration, the bookcases can still impress visitors. The early
    days of the library in Florica are also linked to Ion I. C Bratianu, the one
    who had the first bookcase built on the premises. The first books in the
    library were purchased by Bratianu, from Paris. It was also the old man who
    compiled the first catalogue of that rich library, which proudly included
    bibliophile copies coming from the libraries of his friends in politics, C. A.
    Rosetti, Cezar Bolliac, Alexandru Papiu-Ilarian, as well as his brother, Dumitru
    Brătianu.


    Ion C.
    Brătianu also had a park built, which he names Semiramis’ Gardens, since the
    planting of trees was also one of his hobbies. Apart from the house, the
    vineyard and the park, on the estate, Ion C Bratianu has also set up a farm and
    had a church built there. It was in the church that he would be buried,
    alongside his first child, a girl, Florica, who died at the tender age of 3. Four
    of the Bratianu’s eight children got married on the Bratianu estate. They were
    Sabina, Maria, Vintila and Tatiana. The
    place was visited by many personalities of that time, among them King Carol I,
    his wife Elisabeth and prince heir, the future King Ferdinand I.

    Historian Narcis-Dorin Ion:


    Quite telling for the modesty in which the late 19th
    century’s most prominent politician lived are his and his wife’s room, kept in
    mint condition, also as a result of the mansion’s thoroughgoing refurbishment
    and extension works initiated by Ionel Bratianu. For the family’s elder son, so
    passionate about the study of history, those rooms already had a historic
    value, being presented to the high-brow guests of the mansion as some sort of
    family museum, something the contemporaries held in high esteem. ‘Daddy’s room
    had remained intact as a historical monument, in the cupboard the clothes he
    wore for the last time had been neatly arranged, as well as his Junker’s
    uniform and ma’s engagement dress. His bathroom, simple as it was, had remained
    intact. Ionel’s cult for daddy had been so very uncompromising’, recalled the
    daughter, Sabina Cantacuzino.


    To this day, the Florica estate is a Romanian heritage
    in its own right. It is a tourist asset that also facilitates a trip down the
    memory lane.


    (Translation by Eugen Nasta)

  • Romanian inter-war politics and its heritage

    Romanian inter-war politics and its heritage



    The Florica estate is located around 100 kilometers north-west
    of Bucharest. It is one of the best-known such estates across the country.
    Proof of that stands the personality of those who created the estate and lived
    there afterwards. We’re speaking about the Bratianu family. It is a most
    distinguished family, which for two generations had been actively taking part
    in the making of modern Romania. Ion C. Brătianu and his
    brother, Dumitru, were members of the generation of the 1848 Revolution, also
    contributing to Moldavia’s Union with Wallachia in 1859. Their sons, Ion I. C. Bratianu,
    Dinu Bratianu and Vintila Bratianu, were leading representatives of the 1918
    generation, which among other things, had an important contribution to the
    emergence of Greater Romania.


    The
    origin of the Florica estate has a story behind it. Historian Narcis-Dorin Ion documented that story. The
    foundation of the estate was laid by Dinca Bratianu, the father of the future
    great politician Ion
    I.C Bratianu. Ion I.C Bratianu inherited the Florica and Samburesti estates. Back in the day
    Ion I.C Bratianu also bought the adjoining vineyard, known as Floreasca. The
    vineyard would be Ion I. C Bratianu’s concern until he died, it was the vineyard he would
    tend to and exploit.

    Historian Narcis Dorin Ion:


    Ion C.
    Brătianu would build a first house in Florica in 1858, and here is how his
    nephew, the poet Ion Pillat, reminisced about it, in 1943:’ on the old cellar
    and wine-cellar of the Brancoveanu vineyard, later the property of Dinca Bratianu, his son, Ion C Bratianu,
    would build a simple, two-storey winegrower’s house, which also had an open
    terrace, back then. The gazebo remained in
    a primitive state until the old man’s death. That house in Florica, an old one,
    where I also spent part of my childhood, there was something quiet and
    traditional about it, something that never vanished form my soul.’


    Initially,
    the house was a modest lodging placed in the middle of the vineyard. From a
    three-room house and a wine cellar, in time, Ion I.C. Bratianu built a storied
    mansion and an open terrace. In August 1865, the house in Florica had ten
    rooms, but Bratianu was well aware of the fact that the lodgings still failed
    to provide the amenities he would have liked for his family, which had many
    children, all of them living in Bucharest. In 1877 the Florica railway station
    was inaugurated, so travelling form the capital city Bucharest became a lot
    easier.


    Historian Narcis-Dorin Ion describes the house that
    was substantially refurbished by Pia and her husband, Ion I. C. Bratianu:


    In a letter he sent to his wife,
    Pia, in 1871, Bratianu describes the home in Florica as follows: ‘then I calmed
    down and I got myself seated in the smaller parlor. The room seemed big to me.
    From the little parlor, when I look at the great parlor, I felt as if I were
    somewhere in the palaces in Germany which, being deserted, seemed to me the
    most spacious I had ever seen.’.


    Whenever
    he had his short holidays in Florica, Bratianu liked to be there all by
    himself, with his thoughts and with the passion he had for the vineyard and the animals. In 1869, Bratianu confessed to his wife about what that place meant
    for him, ‘it is the sheer sweetness of a home, since it is only here
    that I feel I am at home, with us. In Bucharest, despite all the amenities we
    have there, I feel like I am in a high-standard hotel, but nothing more than
    that.’


    As
    long as he was still alive, the house had an austere style, imposed by his
    simple taste. Towards the end of his life, his son, Ionel, found it really hard
    to persuade him to make some changes, since Ionel was so passionate about
    constructions.

    Narcis-Dorin Ion:


    The great changes would occur in 1905-1912 and 1924-1925,
    following architect Petre Antonescu’s plans. To this day, thanks to their
    lavish interior decoration, the bookcases can still impress visitors. The early
    days of the library in Florica are also linked to Ion I. C Bratianu, the one
    who had the first bookcase built on the premises. The first books in the
    library were purchased by Bratianu, from Paris. It was also the old man who
    compiled the first catalogue of that rich library, which proudly included
    bibliophile copies coming from the libraries of his friends in politics, C.
    A. Rosetti, Cezar Bolliac, Alexandru Papiu-Ilarian, as well as his brother, Dumitru
    Brătianu.


    Ion
    C. Brătianu also had a park built, which he names Semiramis’ Gardens, since the
    planting of trees was also one of his hobbies. Apart from the house, the
    vineyard and the park, on the estate, Ion C Bratianu had also set up a farm and
    had a church built there. It was in the church that he was buried,
    alongside his first child, a girl, Florica, who died at the tender age of 3. Four
    of Bratianu’s eight children got married on the Bratianu estate. They were
    Sabina, Maria, Vintila and Tatiana. The place
    was visited by many personalities of that time, among them King Carol I, his
    wife Elisabeth and prince heir, the future King Ferdinand I.

    Historian Narcis-Dorin
    Ion:


    Quite telling for the modesty in which the late 19th
    century’s most prominent politician lived are his and his wife’s room, kept in
    mint condition, also as a result of the mansion’s thoroughgoing refurbishment
    and extension works initiated by Ionel Bratianu. For the family’s elder son, so
    passionate about the study of history, those rooms already had a historic
    value, being presented to the high-brow guests of the mansion as some sort of
    family museum, something the contemporaries held in high esteem. ‘Daddy’s room
    had remained intact as a historical monument, in the cupboard the clothes he
    wore for the last time had been neatly arranged, as well as his Junker’s
    uniform and ma’s engagement dress. His bathroom, simple as it was, had remained
    intact. Ionel’s cult for daddy had been so very uncompromising’, recalled the
    daughter, Sabina Cantacuzino.


    To this day, Florica estate has remained a Romanian heritage element in its own right. It is a tourist asset, also facilitating a trip down the
    memory lane.

    (Translation by Eugen Nasta)