Radio România Internațional

Category: RRI Encyclopaedia

  • Projects of the Ceausescu Era and their remnants in today’s Bucharest

    Projects of the Ceausescu Era and their remnants in today’s Bucharest


    The Crangasi district in the north-western area of Bucharest in the north-western area of Bucharest boasts Romanian capital city’s biggest artificial lake. The water surface area has a rather recent history. It appeared 36 years ago, in 1986. It is known as the Mill Lake. The lake is also known as the Ciurel or the Dambovita Lake. The area proper of the water surface is impressive; it used to be part of the large-scale watercourse arrangement project targeting the Dambovita river which cuts through Romania’s capital city, from north-west to the east.



    We’re about to explore the history of the Mill Lake, and our guide is historian Cezar Buiumaci with the Bucharest Municipal Museum. Here he is, taking us back to the beginnings of Bucharest’s newest and biggest lake.



    Cezar Buiumaci:



    The Mill Lake is part of Dambovita river’s watercourse arrangement project and, as an idea, it first occurred once with the inception of Bucharest’s town planning works in the 20th century’s early 1980s. It was part of Nicolae Ceausescu’s great makeover project for the city. The Bucharest leader was only taking up on an idea that had occurred previously, that of the construction of a waterway linking Bucharest to the Danube and involving the watercourse of Dambovita and Arges rivers. The condition of the Dambovita river flow was analyzed, only to reveal that the old river bed was not fit for inland waterway transportation. For the water flow to increase, two big river-barrier lakes were created: Ciurel, also known as the Mill Lake or the Dambovita Lake, and Vacaresti.



    The large-scale makeover project of the mid 1908s targeting Dambovita had a political component, but also a town planning significance. Here is historian Cezar Buiumaci once again, with the details.



    On July 5, 1985, the Romanian Communist Party’s Central Committee convened a meeting of the Executive Political Committee, highlighting the impending necessity of carrying watercourse arrangement works for Dambovita river as part and parcel of the new Civic Center project. The project included the construction of a big river-barrier lake in the western part of the city, with the purpose of storing an important volume of water required for the clean-water supply of Dambovita river. It had also been though out as a protection system in the event of the rivers’ bursting their banks, at once being a pleasure lake. Watercourse arrangement works also targeted the sanitizing of Dambovita river as it was flowing through Bucharest, the improvement of the climate, the creation of proper navigation facilities and the carrying of construction works for the Bucharest – River Danube waterway. Works took off as soon as the official consent was given, by dint of Decree no. 201 issued on July 12, 1985.



    However, in spite of all that, the idea of Dambovita river’s navigability would be given up on, as soon as specialists were consulted. On September 28, 1985, the construction site was opened festively, while almost a year later, in August 1986, the gates were be closed, of the Ciurel dam.



    Historian Cezar Buiumaci:



    On August 21, 1986, the large-scale work was completed for the Ciurel river-barrier lake, Bucharest’s biggest artificial lake, stretching along a surface area of 240 hectares, with a total capacity of 20 million cubic meters and meant to provide the supply of drinkable, irrigation and industrial water. The river-barrier water lake also had the purpose of collecting the water from floodwaters. The undertaking also included river bank protection works, upstream of the lake, until Dragomiresti-Deal, along 5 kilometres, or thereabouts. A surface area of more than 1,100 hectares of farmland was thus protected, as well as other categories of investments lying in the proximity of the river bed. For the water to be evacuated, a river dam was built, nearby the Ciurel bridge, it was made of ferro-concrete, with 3 dams having a 6-meter span each. The sea of Crangasi has a depth of 5 to 10 meters and is embanked with a dam made of thick clay, obtained from the excavation operations for the valley of the lake.



    However, the large-scale project meant the relocation of a cemetery and of several human communities that inhabited the area. According to the urban legends, sometimes human bodies could be seen floating on the water, so the lake was dubbed the Death Lake, a play upon words, in Romanian, with Lacul Morii becoming Lacul Mortii.



    Cezar Buiumaci:



    Here, apart from other objectives, there was a cemetery around Crangasi church and the decision was taken, for the cemetery to be dismantled and the human remains to be relocated to the Giulesti-Sarbi cemetery. In early 1985, disinterment works began. The timeframe for that kind of work was limited, the employees were unable to meet their deadlines and the gravediggers from other cemeteries refused to help with the dismantling, so sanitation workers were employed instead. The construction of the lake on the premises of the former cemetery, that still makes the topic of several urban legends.



    Another purpose for the construction of Lacul Morii, the Mill Lake was that of doing leisure and sports activities.



    Historian Cezar Buiumaci:



    Since it was built in a densely-populated area, the Dambovita lake also had to cater for a cultural and sports component. Being an area where the access from other districts could be made using the underground thoroughfare but also the surface public transport, arrangements were designed for ground and nautical sports: sports fishing wharfs and an island with a surface area of roughly 5 hectares. For its greater part, it was built by workers from other enterprises doing community work, they put in more than 70,000 hours in terms of workload until September 2, 1987.



    The Mill Lake in north-western Bucharest, for quite some time now, has been a noted landmark of the city. The development of the last three decades, the events that have been staged there as well as the natural climate that has been created in the meantime have made the lake increasingly attractive.


    (EN)





  • Architect Cristofi Cerchez

    Architect Cristofi Cerchez

    Founded at the end of the 19th century by
    architect Ion Mincu, the neo-Romanian architectural style intertwines elements
    of the peasant and Brâncovenesc styles in a new mix that was swiftly adopted
    and adapted by architects in the early 20th century. Bucharest in
    particular, but many other cities from the former Principality of Wallachia,
    are living evidence of how fast the neo-Romanian style expanded. One of the
    iconic representatives of this style was architect Cristofi Cerchez, whose life
    has been documented by art historian Oana Marinache.


    Cristofi Cerchez was born Cristofi Hristea in July 1872
    into a very numerous family. It seems there were 18 siblings in total, but
    unfortunately, due to the hardships and illnesses of the 19th
    century, the life of many family members was cut short, and only three boys and
    three girls made it to adulthood. Still, it was a family of certain financial
    means. Their father administered large estates for important noblemen, which
    meant they moved around a lot. Ever since his teens, Cristofi was given the
    opportunity of familiarizing himself with vernacular architecture during his
    numerous journeys abroad. He originally enrolled in the School for roads and
    bridges, at the time the only form of technical higher education. Later he was
    the beneficiary of a private scholarship, granted by the widow of a famous
    local surgeon, Turnescu, and so went to Milan. There, he had the opportunity of
    enrolling in the Polytechnics school, taking up a major in civilian
    architecture. He also started developing his artistic skills, since Milan
    provided every opportunity to help further his later training and activity. His
    academic path differed extensively from that of his peers. Most young Romanians
    would go to Paris to study at the Fine Arts school, but Cerchez was from the
    very start influenced by architect Ion Mincu, the forefather of the
    neo-Romanian style. Although they were set 20 years apart, Cristofi Cerchez
    studied the building of the Central School for Girls in Bucharest and Mincu’s
    first works, whereas his first own creations observed the neo-Romanian style in
    a fashion much similar to Mincu’s.


    Today, Cristofi Cerchez is considered one of the most
    illustrious exponents of the neo-Romanian style in towns across the country,
    setting the tone for architectural elements specific to 19th century
    market towns, dominated by a middle class made up of traders and merchants.
    Some of these were actually Cerchez’s patrons, and their homes have endured to
    this day, as Oana Marinache told us.


    From a professional point of view, Cristofi Cerchez
    initially distinguished himself in the towns where he had studied or worked:
    Câmpulung Muscel, Alexandria and Constanța,
    where for a brief period of time he worked at the Constanța City Hall technical
    service. It was only at the end of 1905 that he came to Bucharest to work on
    one the most important commissions of his career, one of the best-known villas
    in Bucharest, owned by doctor Nicolae Minovici, also known as the Roadside
    Bells Villa. It’s a commission that actually opened up vistas for further
    participation in the authorities’ hospital architecture program. Cerchez built
    the Ambulance Society, a building which was unfortunately leveled during the
    World War II bombing. Additionally, he designed buildings for the laboratories
    of the Institute for Forensic Medicine, where the Minovici brothers were very
    active as directors. He also designed other important buildings, of which I
    would only mention the Polizu Maternity Hospital in Bucharest, which was very
    known to the local population and which was also part of the authorities’
    hospital architecture program.


    In the southern Carpathians, architect Cerchez also left his
    mark on numerous buildings.


    In Vălenii de Munte mountain resort,
    Cristofi Cerchez designed numerous buildings towards the end of his career.
    Shortly after the great earthquake of 1940, Cerchez got involved in the
    restoration of religious buildings affected by the quake. He was also appointed
    to build a headquarters for the Trade Bank in Văleni, as well as a home for its
    director. He finished the projects over 1941-1942. Basically, his activity
    spans from the end of the 19th century and up to 1945. The last ten
    years of his life are very quiet. The artist did very little work and had a lot
    of financial troubles, as his properties were seized by the authorities. Still,
    he leaves behind an impressive career spanning over 45 years.


    Architect Cristofi Cerchez died on January 15, 1955, aged
    67. (VP)

  • 150 years since the birth of Nicolae Iorga

    150 years since the birth of Nicolae Iorga

    Nicolae Iorga is the historian with the highest visibility in the cultural world in Romania, and not only. Streets, squares, educational and research institutions have been named after him. He was one of the most important Romanian historians of the 20th century, and some would even say the most important. He was admired by his contemporaries thanks to his impressive work, comprising some 20,000 titles, volumes, lectures, and articles, and his ambition to be an undisputed authority in the field of history.

    He specialized in the study of the Middle Ages and the history of the Byzantine Empire, but became a novelist, Slavist, art historian and philosopher of history. Iorga was also a university professor and academician. Apart from the field in which he performed best, history and the editing of historical documents, Iorga also tried to be a literary critic, playwright, poet, encyclopedist, memorialist. He was also very much involved in the political life, and was a member of parliament and minister. On the other hand, his huge popularity is mainly due to his tragic death on the night of November 27, 1940, when he was killed by legionnaires, members of the fascist party in interwar Romania.

    Nicolae Iorga was born in 1871 in Botoșani and had special intellectual abilities, in particular a very good memory. He was a polyglot and chose to study history at the Faculty of Letters of the University of Iași. In 1890 he went to study abroad in Italy, then in France. In 1892 Iorga went to England and again Italy. In 1893 he settled for a while in Germany where he enrolled in the doctoral program of the University of Berlin. He managed to get his doctorate from the University of Leipzig, one of the three members of the doctoral committee being the famous German historian Karl Lamprecht.

    Iorga returned to Romania in 1894 and at the age of 23 entered the academic world. In the same year, he also started his journalistic and political activity, and became close friends with the lawyer and law professor A. C. Cuza, a nationalist and anti-Semite, by the side of whom he would have a hectic political career. Iorga was an exponent of conservatism, nationalism and agrarianism and founded the popular magazine Sămănătorul (the harvester). Iorga was also the typical intellectual flirting with extremism, being both an inspiration and a victim to it. He cultivated nationalism and fell victim to it in 1940.

    The National Museum of History of Romania organized an exhibition marking a century and a half since Nicolae Iorga’s birth. It was the second event in Bucharest dedicated to Iorga in the last year, after the exhibition organized by the Romanian Academy. The director of the museum, Ernest Oberlander-Târnoveanu, says that the exhibition is an opportunity for anyone interested to understand better how big Iorga’s personality was:

    This exhibition is dedicated to a human life as it was, as Iorga put it. It is a selection, but not because we did not want to exhibit more objects. On the one hand, the space is limited, on the other hand, Iorga’s activity and the marks he left in contemporary history are immense. We can only hope that one day we will create a Nicolae Iorga documentary archive in the virtual space. The National Museum of Romanian History can exhibit for the first time to the public and visitors essential documents: from his birth certificate to Iorga’s job description from the University of Bucharest, or the numerous diplomas of merit he received from various academies and scholarly societies. We also exhibited correspondence, photographs, family documents, objects and an impressive series of orders and decorations. Nicolae Iorga was the most decorated Romanian civilian of all time.

    Historian, professor and academician Andrei Pippidi is Iorga’s nephew from one of his daughters. He owns most of the objects presented in the exhibition at the National Museum of History. Pippidi is one of the donors to the institution of culture of some personal objects of Iorga that will be exhibited in the permanent exhibitions and in the future thematic ones. Andrei Pippidi:

    There are manuscripts everywhere, of history books, of the daily press articles or of plays, poems, letters scribbled on random pieces of paper. All are edifying for his intellectual value. Admirers keep records of how much he published, even recorded monologues have been preserved. And we can now read his lectures thanks to hard-working stenographers.

    Nicolae Iorga’s personality left a significant mark on the Romanian culture of the 19th and 20th centuries. But such themed exhibitions are also meant to show the normal, mundane aspects of his life and work.

  • The Wooden Church in the village of Urși

    The Wooden Church in the village of Urși

    The
    restauration of this small church in Valcea county, southern Romania, which
    started in 2009 and was completed in 2020 thanks to the funds obtained through
    donations and the volunteer work of numerous students, architects and
    professional painting conservators, has become not only a model to imitate but
    also a way to learn how they used to build things at that time. According to
    architect Raluca Munteanu, who got involved with the restoration works, the
    church, which was dedicated to the Annunciation and the Archangel Michael, was
    built between 1757-1784.






    Raluca Munteanu: The church we see today isn’t likely to be
    the church that was built first, as we ‘ve learnt that it survived a
    devastating fire in 1883 and subsequently underwent a series of restauration
    works. An 1843 inscription placed at its entrance mentions founder Nicolae
    Milcoveanu who did the restauration works and the church’s extremely valuable
    wall paintings date back to the same year. Nicolae Milcoveanu wasn’t a boyar, but a
    wealthy local who got actively involved in the community life like they used to
    back then. He repaired the church and gave it back to the community.


    However,
    the woodcarvers, those who actually built the church, remained anonymous until
    nowadays, though the painters were mentioned, Gheorghe, Nicolaie and Ioan.
    Gheorghe was seemingly one of the locals, as architect Raluca Munteanu
    believes.






    Raluca Munteanu: They could have been locals who got their
    inspiration from the monasteries in the area, mainly from the Hurezi monastery,
    which served, as one can easily notice, as model for the other churches in the
    area. However, documents are pretty scare in the area and it is possible that
    the names of the builders had been known to the locals, but as they didn’t have
    the routine of documenting events, their names remain unknown to us. A strange
    thing though is that we know the names of the painters… In the case of these
    village churches, few names of their builders are known. We only know they were
    well-trained professionals and went from one place to the other to build
    churches in the neighborhood. An expert painter can nowadays identify the way
    in which local style was passed down from generation to generation.




    The
    dimensions of this church are also illustrative for the village community but
    also for the wood exploitation capabilities of the region. The small church in
    Ursi is almost 8 meters long, 6 meters wide and maybe measures 2 meters and 40
    centimeters from the floor up to its ceiling. With its roof, the church’s total
    height stands at 4 meters and 50 centimeters, says Raluca Munteanu adding that its
    architecture doesn’t belong to any particular style.




    Raluca Munteanu: This is a vernacular church built as
    pragmatically as they possibly could at that time. It is a simple construction
    made with the materials they abundantly had at that time, like wood, for
    instance. This type of dovetail joints can be found all over Europe as it was
    the easiest and cheapest way to build something. At the same time, wood was
    also cheap and easy to come by in these mountainous areas. The church was
    functional and adjusted to meet the requirements of the religious services of
    the Orthodox Church and it doesn’t have anything special as compared to the
    other wooden churches in the region. It complies with the requirements of the
    Orthodox religion and the pattern of its buildings, both in terms of interior
    compartmentalization and functionality. Like I said its decorations were
    influenced by the paintings of the Hurezi monastery and are organized in keeping
    with the Orthodox rituals. What is special, not only for this region but for a
    larger area is the builders’ decision to adorn the church with wooden frescoes
    as these two techniques, the frescoes and the wooden paintings are known to be
    incompatible. Painters here employed a technique used at wall-painted
    monasteries, also known as fresco painting, which is executed upon freshly laid
    lime plaster and is different from secco painting techniques, which are applied
    to dried plaster.




    The church’s frail mural painting and its
    premises have been completely refurbished and given back to the parishioners
    concurrently with another concrete church recently built in the village.




    (bill)



  • The History of Champagne in Romania

    The History of Champagne in Romania

    Starting in 1859, the year when the Romanian principalities united, Romanian society started becoming more and more European, from every point of view. Generation by generation, Romanians started achieving their political objectives of consolidating their state and of obtaining independence in 1878, the Romanian model of economic and social development followed the European one. The elites led the changes, which then trickled down to other social classes.




    One of the examples of Romanians turning more European is champagne. At the factory in Azuga, on Prahova Valley, in the southern Carpathians, a good part of the Romanian history of champagne was written. The first attempts to make it here were made as early as 1840 to 1841, when jurist and agronomist Ion Ionescu de la Brad produced champagne for Prince Mihail Sturdza. 43 years later, in 1884, the Muller-Reich champagne factory opened in Braila for local consumption. However, industrial manufacture of champagne started with the Saxon brothers Wilhelm August and Heinrich Rhein. They were fabric traders who set up shop in Azuga, where they opened a fabric factory. In 1890 they opened a furniture factory, and in 1892 a wine warehouse that became the basis of champagne manufacture. In 1889, they opened a brewery, encouraged by the policies of King Carol I, the great builder of modern Romania, as shown to us by historian Dorin Stanescu:


    “Carol I had a very smart policy. He offered all these investors concessions for land on long term, allowing them to build manufactures, with a modicum of rent. It was about the level of the wages of one worker. This was no effort for an industrialist. In addition, he also gave a blank check to these enterprises which were being built one by one in Prahova Valley, buying shares. Carol I, then the entire royal family were shareholders in the factories in Azuga.”




    The champagne was well on its way to being on the Romanian list of preferences. The wine warehouse kept by the Rhein brothers was doing very well, and the awards they received at big international exhibitions, such as the one in Paris in 1900, provided great opportunities for the two entrepreneurs. Demand for champagne grew along with its popularity, as shown by the advertising at that time. The Rhein brothers built in Azuga a cellar to keep wine, which still exists, and could accommodate their entire output of wine. In 1902, they stored there their first batch, 40,000 bottles. After 3 years, required for aging the champagne, in November 1905 the Rhein company put on the market their first industrial batch. In 1906, they got the first recognition for sparkling wine made by Rhein at the Universal Exhibition in Bucharest, in honor of King Carol Is 40th year on the throne. Here is Dorin Stanescu:


    “At this exhibition, the Rhine company had a special pavilion, visited by the king and big crowds of people. As far as we know, 2 million people visited the pavilion at the exhibition, and the Rhein company won a gold medal for the quality of the champagne made in Azuga. From then on, Rhein champagne simply took over the Romanian market. It became the most popular champagne in the Old Kingdom.”




    In Azuga, they wrote the best page in the history of Romanian champagne. They brought in grapes from the best vineyards in the country, and quality was tested by experts. The presentation was nothing to laugh at. The bottles were brought from Germany, the labels were printed, and the foil to cover the corks were brought from Western Europe. The Rhein company was expanding rapidly. In 1909, they had their initial public offering, with King Carol as a shareholder. In recognition of their performance, the Rhein brothers were decorated by the king, and became purveyors to the Royal House.




    WWI brought with it great disruptions. In the autumn of 1916, fighting reached Prahova Valley, and Azuga was taken over by the German army. German soldiers celebrated victory of the Romanians with champagne, with each soldier getting 6 bottles. After 1918, the companys finances did not look good, but they soon they back on their game. However, soon other companies started providing competition, especially Mott, founded by another German, Wilhelm Mott. He had been a master champagne maker at Rhein. In 1913 he left to set up his own factory, in Bucharest. In the late 1930, Rhein lost primacy on the market to Mott, after years of dominating. After WWII, the two companies, Rhein and Mott, were nationalized as a brand called Zarea. After 1989, both brands came back to life, getting back to tradition.

  • Princess Apafi of Transylvania

    Princess Apafi of Transylvania


    Rarely featured in official documents or in history books, the private lives of rulers or nobility are rather difficult to document, and private correspondence or diaries are the main sources in this respect. This is all the more true when it comes to the wives of those powerful men-the women who sometimes stood in for their spouses and even influenced the course of history.



    One such woman was Anna Bornemisza, wife to the last but one prince of Transylvania, Mihai Apafi I, who left behind a substantial correspondence thanks to which we can now research the dramatic situation of the principality in the last half of the 17th Century.



    Anna Bornemisza came from old Transylvanian nobility, but was also related to the nobles in Wallachia. In fact, the Apafis were quite close to the Brâncoveanu family, and owned properties in Făgăraș Country, including the Făgăraș Citadel where the princely couple even lived for a while.



    Mihai Apafi I ruled between 1661 and 1690, in a troubled period for Transylvania. Professor Șarolta Solcan told us a few things about the princesss life.



    Șarolta Solcan: “Anna Bornemisza came from an aristocratic family in Oradea, which made her feel not quite safe among the high-ranking nobles of Transylvania. This is why she brought with her trustworthy people from Oradea, including Mihai Teleki, the son of her cousin, who became chancellor of Transylvania after 1680. Anna Bornemisza was right by her husbands side from 1661 until her death in 1688. She was greatly involved in the ruling of the country, in the management of the princely estates, while the prince was busy with his hobbies: reading, philosophy, clock collection. At some point he was even criticised by his contemporaries, who said he was better suited to be a priest than a ruler. But the fact that his wife was very much involved in the countrys politics was also heavily criticised in the society of the time. Yet, in spite of the criticism, Anna Bornemisza was a strong personality in the Romanian political scene.”



    Anna Bornemisza was the one who paid the ransom for the prince to the Crimea Tatars in 1660, after a disastrous military campaign in Poland. And she was also the one who substituted for her husband in the daily affairs of the principality, when Mihai Apafi I was either away on military campaigns, or isolated and deep in his reading. Here are some more details from Professor Șarolta Solcan:



    Șarolta Solcan: “Anna Bornemisza is believed to have been born around 1636. We know that she got married on 10th June 1653 with the would-be prince Mihai Apafi I, and had a troubled life with him. Apafi I ruled for a long time–until 1690-and his rule was freight with tensions, both for himself and for Anna Bornemisza who was always by his side. During his reign there were conflicts between the Ottoman Empire and the Austrian Empire over control on Hungary. More than once, the two empires would ask for Transylvanias support and would threaten the principality and its ruler.”



    In private, the princess of Transylvania always lived in fear for her husbands life and amid worries for her children, many of them sickly and dead by an early age. These constant fears, the difficult political situation of the country and the frequent epidemics threw her into a deep depression. The documents of the time mention the princesss “ailment in the head,” which triggered her fixation with spells and charms. Her obsession that someone was using spells to harm her eventually entailed the witch hunt and witch trials in late 17th Century Transylvania. Under these circumstances, in 1682 her health collapsed, and she became a person ruined on the inside, as a contemporary described her.



    Anna Bornemisza died in 1688, and was initially buried in the vault of the Mălâncrav church (in todays Sibiu County), a church commissioned by her family. Later, in mid-20th Century, the remains were taken to a Reformed church in Cluj. Professor Șarolta Solcan concludes:



    Șarolta Solcan: “She was a very strong woman who, in spite of her extreme physical fragility, fought against a mind-set hostile to women, which denied women the right to take part in political decision-making. This idea was so deeply rooted that it was common even among women themselves. The daughter of another Transylvanian aristocrat said a womans mind was not fit for ruling a country. But Anna Bornemisza disagreed.” (tr. A.M. Popescu)


  • Doctors and cures in the Romanian territories

    Doctors and cures in the Romanian territories

    The history of mankind abounds in heroic stories featuring doctors, medicines and cures. Doctors have always been among the most sought-after knowledgeable people because they knew how to drive away pain, improve the condition of the suffering and even save lives. In the Romanian space before the 19th century, when modern medicine emerged, many doctors and medicines that the elites needed could be found at the princely courts. The lower classes would ease their suffering using traditional and empirical recipes as they were not so much connected to the latest in the field.

    Doctors have been valuable resources for historians to reconstruct the material and mental universe of the time. They left written documents such as travel notes, correspondence and prescriptions from which we learn about diseases, about attitudes towards diseases, epidemics, perceptions, mentalities. The doctors coming to the Romanian Principalities were Westerners seeking to practice their profession in the Ottoman Empire and who would get to activate also in the Romanian space within the Eastern and Levantine cultural area. But doctors didn’t just come from the West. Along with the French, Italians, Germans, there were also Jews and Greeks who would come at the courts of the princes of Wallachia and Moldavia and leave once the prince was removed from power.

    Constanța Vintilă-Ghițulescu is one of the five authors of the volume Luxury, fashion and other political trifles in South-Eastern Europe in the XVI-XIX centuries which also includes stories about doctors and medicines that people would resort to back then. In Transylvania, which was in the sphere of influence of Western culture, there had been pharmacies since the end of the 15th century. The big cities of Cluj, Sibiu, Brașov would prepare prescriptions using substances imported in part from the Ottoman Empire. Maria Pakucs-Willcocks wrote about an inventory of medicine stocks in Sibiu from 1531 and from her study we find out that the medicines were sold by the same merchants who brought dyes and poisons.

    Constanța Vintilă-Ghițulescu: Several lists of pharmaceutical products and their properties, often printed under the title Materia medica, are kept in Sibiu’s archives. This shows a growing trend in the circulation of medicinal products and various chemical or pharmaceutical compounds. There are a number of dyes, mineral and chemical ingredients in these lists that were brought from the Ottoman Empire and recorded in customs and tariff registers. What does this mean? An obvious interest at community level in therapies and healing.

    The doctors at the courts of the 18th century Phanariot princes were a case study for Constanța Vintilă-Ghițulescu. The book recalls a certain Giacomo Pilarino who was a physician at the court of the Ruler of Wallachia Constantin Brancoveanu (1688-1714) and, before getting to Bucharest, he had stayed a while at the Russian Tsar’s court. During his stay in the Ottoman Empire he wrote down important observations about the outbreak and spread of smallpox.

    Constanța Vintilă-Ghițulescu also speaks of the French doctor Exupere-Joseph Bertin and the Italian Giuseppe Antonio Pisani. The Italian came in 1751 to Iasi, at the princely court of Constantin Racovita, to treat his wife, Sultana Racovita. The woman died in 1753, and Pisani was accused of what we call today malpractice. He was accused of prescribing the wrong treatment and was sent to jail. In fact, the doctor was also a diplomat and he fell victim to the many plots and rivalries at the court. Nobody knows for sure what happened to him in the end, although the French Ambassador to Constantinople offered to take him to his service in order to save him.

    Constanța Vintilă-Ghițulescu reconstructed the route of another Italian doctor who stayed longer in the Romanian Principalities: Niccolo Ramelli, who became Niculae, Neculae and Neculai Ramelli. He enjoyed great respect among Moldavians thanks to his work. In 1804, a group of people from Chisinau sent him a thank-you letter that read: For the time he lived here in Chisinau, taking care of the sick, he was very worthy. And to show him our content, we write this testimony.

    I stopped, in my research, on Niccolo Ramelli. He practiced medicine in Bessarabia and later in Moldavia, between 1790-1819. In a letter I used in my analysis, sent by a certain Lupe, Dr. Ramelli is asked for a cure for constipation. The contracts with the inhabitants of Bacău or with various boyars for various medical treatments, with in-laws, brothers-in-law, metropolitans helped me to rebuild the daily life of this doctor, who died in 1819 somewhere on the Moldavian land.

    Doctors and their stories as well as the circulation of substances and medicines in the pre-modern Romanian space are evidence that people of the past were interested in improving their lives. And there are still many interesting stories waiting to be discovered and told. (MI)

  • Lady Elena Cantacuzino

    Lady Elena Cantacuzino

    Briefly mentioned by documents and history books and rarely part of collective memory, the wives, mothers and daughters of Romanian boyars of the past have raised the interest of researchers. Some of them have found that these women had contributed a lot to the political, cultural and religious life of their time. Such an example is Lady Elena Cantacuzino, born in 1611, daughter of the ruler of Wallachia, Radu Serban, mother of ruler Serban Cantacuzino, of scholar Constantin Cantacuzino, of army chief Mihai Cantacuzino and the grandmother of ruler Constantin Brancoveanu. Lady Elena and two of her children went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, which was something extraordinary for the 17th century. In Jerusalem, in the area where Jesus was crucified, she donated a golden plate, inscribed with the name of her son, Serban Cantacuzino, which is now part of the heritage of the Orthodox Church in Jerusalem. Religion was a very important part of her life, alongside culture and education. One of her sons had studied at the University of Padova and she had an important say in the decision to send him abroad for studies.



    Sorin Iftimi, a museographer at the Moldavia National Museum Compound in Iasi tells us more about Lady Elena Cantacuzino: “She was the daughter of Radu Seban Voda, former captain in the army of Michael the Brave, who would become ruler. She was born in Suceava, in 1611, on the first year of her fathers rule. She was raised in exile, at the Imperial Court in Vienna. She returned to the country with her family during the reign of Matei Basarab. She was 17 when she married Constantin Cantacuzino a wise nobleman picked for her by the then ruler. She gave birth to 12 children. Those who survived would become the famous Cantacuzino brothers, who marked the history of Wallachia in the 17th century. We could say Lady Elena herself made history, by giving birth to the artisans of Wallachias history in the 17th century. Serban Voda Cantacuzino, who erected the Cotroceni Palace, the presidential headquarters of today, and under whose patronage the first full version of the Bible in Romanian was printed in 1688, was the best known. In his turn, his brother, Constantin Cantacuzino, was a scholar who studied in Padova and Constantinople.



    Lady Elenas trip to Jerusalem, between 1682 and 1684, took place after her husband had been assassinated as part of a plot staged by boyars. The pilgrimage seems to have been a proof of the genuine faith in God of this woman who, although she managed to prove her husbands innocence and obtain the conviction of the ones who plotted against him, when his murderer received the death penalty she succeeded to change this sentence with the obligation for the murderer to become a monk.



    Spending a lot of time with her children, she was also the one who managed the family fortune, which was a considerable one. Ruler Serban Cantacuzino had inherited from his mother a large estate made up of around 70 villages in Moldavia, as well as houses. Sorin Iftimi tells us more about it: “It is interesting to see that, even if her son, Serban Cantacuzino, had become ruler, she continued to be the head of the family. She controlled and managed the family fortune and set strict rules on how it was about to be distributed among her children. So her son, who was the ruler, could not do anything but wait for her to pass away in order to be in charge. She died in March 1687 at her home in Bucharest, aged 76. She was buried at the Margineni church near her husband.“



    The story also has a post-scriptum concerning especially Serban Cantacuzino, who, after the death of his mother, divided the fortune after his own rules, by forging her will. Recent historical research shows that this thing explains better the conflicts of that time, both in politics and among family members.


  • 500 years since the letter of Neacșu of Câmpulung

    500 years since the letter of Neacșu of Câmpulung

    In
    1894, Friedrich Stenner, an archivist with the Brașov City Archives, found a
    document written in Cyrillic alphabet by a Neacșu from the town of Câmpulung. It
    was a letter to the mayor of Braşov, Hans Benkner, in which Neacșu was warning
    of Ottoman military manoeuvres on the Danube and advised measures should be
    taken. The letter dates back to 1521 and is regarded as the first document in
    Romanian preserved to this day.


    Neacșu’s brief note
    has been researched extensively by historians and linguists. The former have
    focused on the players involved and the political context of the 16th
    Century, and the latter analysed the Romanian language of the time.


    Regional politics was
    dominated by the Ottoman Empire’s expansion into Central Europe. Since the
    mid-14th Century and until 1521, the Ottomans had conquered the
    Balkans and were heading for Hungary, which was to fall in 1526. Historian Radu
    Nedici, a professor of Medieval history with the University of Bucharest, was
    the first to provide an explanation for the document:


    Radu Nedici: Historians
    tried to come up with an explanation for the letter. The most reasonable of
    them seems to be the haste to convey information on an Ottoman military
    campaign. The standard at the time was to use Slavonic or Latin in the
    correspondence between Wallachia, Transylvania and the Kingdom of Hungary. Very
    likely the rush to send urgent intelligence regarding an Ottoman attack and a
    possible threat to Braşov prompted Neacșu to write this letter in Romanian.

    The
    strongest ties between the German towns in the Transylvanian Carpathians and
    the other Romanian provinces were economic. Câmpulung and Brașov, only 85 km
    from each other, had over two centuries old connections, and those who
    preserved that contact were mostly merchants. Neacșu was apparently part of Câmpulung’s
    trading elite, says Radu Nedici:




    Radu Nedici: Unfortunately we know little today about Neacșu of Câmpulung. He is
    never mentioned in documents prior to this letter. He seems to be a merchant
    from Câmpulung, involved in trading Oriental products that would transit
    Wallachia on their way to Central Europe, via Brașov. On the other side we have
    the magistrate from Braşov, the mayor of the town, mentioned in a lot more
    documents. Since Brașov was one of the main towns in Transylvania, his position
    was quite important.


    In 1521, Wallachia was
    ruled by prince Neagoe Basarab. In fact, the prince died around 3 months after
    the letter was written. The country was likely to fall under Ottoman influence,
    but Wallachian nobility were still hoping for support from Hungary. Therefore,
    Wallachian princes and characters like Neacșu would readily keep the Christians
    across the mountains up to date with the Ottomans’ moves.


    The letter was
    complete, written in brown ink, in good condition, with a seal on the back. We asked
    Radu Nedici about the Romanian language spoken in the 16th Century:


    Radu Nedici: To a 21st
    Century reader, the language is rather hard to understand, because a lot of
    Slavonic phrases are used. The beginning and ending, as well as the connectors
    for each paragraph, are taken as such from Slavonic, hence the difficulty of
    understanding the text. On the other hand, the language is quite comprehensible
    if we look exclusively at the part of the text in Romanian. So we have a
    language developing in a direction that we can recognise today.


    In a book published in
    1970, linguist Aurel Nicolescu counted 190 unique words in Neacşu’s letter. 178
    of them come from Latin, 11 are Slavonic and Hungarian, and only 1 comes from
    Turkish.


    Radu Nedici: The letter was written at a time
    when Romanian was just being introduced in the princely chancellery. This happened
    as the Romanian language was beginning to be used extensively, including in
    official contexts. This is a document written at a precisely known date, in
    1521, so in mid-16th Century we are beginning to see
    Romanian-language documents written in Romanian chancelleries. It was the time
    when the Romanian language was developing and becoming predominant.


    The
    letter of Neacșu of Câmpulung is the written testimony that Romanian was used
    in correspondence 500 years ago. In the five centuries that followed, various
    influences have enriched it and turned it into the language we speak today. (tr, A.M. Popescu)

  • Healthcare endeavours in early 19th century Wallachia

    Healthcare endeavours in early 19th century Wallachia


    The first
    hospitals were established on the premises of monasteries or nearby, on the
    Romanian territory. Monasteries were once places were the physical conditions
    were cured together with the psychological or mental ones. In Bucharest, one
    such treatment place was the Panteleimon Hospital settlement. Initially it was
    placed somewhere outside the city, in the commune of Pantelimon. In time, the
    commune grew into one of Bucharest’s eastern districts. Its name and subsequent
    fame were linked to the Saint Panteleimon Monastery, built in the mid-18th
    century. The foundation deed of the hospital settlement is dated 1731. However,
    the construction proper, for the establishment and for the monastery began in
    1735. It was not until 1750 that the works for the two edifices were completed.
    1735 was a year to remember because of the plague epidemic that broke out that
    year. The epidemic severely affected the downtrodden segment of the population,
    as usual treated on the premises of the monasteries. Actually, ruling prince
    Grigore the 2nd Ghica, the founder of the hospital, ruled that the
    new institution should cure the contagious diseases as well. Subsequently, another
    hospital was built. The new establishment was exclusively dedicated to the contagious
    diseases. The Saint Panteleimon Hospital was dedicated to the more general conditions.
    In the 19th century, the hospital had been going through a series of
    changes. One such change was implemented by one of the first physicians
    schooled in the West, Constantin Caracas. At that time, medical doctors trained
    in the West got involved in the development of the public healthcare system in Wallachia.
    But what exactly happened at that time? Mihaela Diana
    Spranceana     pursues a Master’s programme with the University of Bucharest’s
    History Faculty.




    Mihaela
    Diana Spranceana:




    In the
    first half of the 19th century, actually in 1832, ruling prince
    Grigore Ghica the 4th had the old hospital taken down, ruling that new
    rooms be built, for a number of 37 patients. In the following years, the number
    of patients was continually growing. Between 1867 and 1869 the hospital was rebuilt
    from scratch and opened with a spare-bed capacity of 80 beds. Admitted to that hospital
    were both male and female patients suffering from chronic diseases that were
    internal, but also external, sexually transmitted diseases as well as ophthalmological
    conditions. Yearly, around 350 patients were treated, while the number of deaths
    per year ranged from 12 to 15, according to the hospital register and the physician
    Constantin Caracas’s accounts. Who were the hospital’s medical doctors, throughout
    the years? On the staff of Saint Panteleimon Hospital were physicians who were famous
    around the country, and among them we would like to mention the names of Dimitrie
    Caracaș, but also that of his son, Constantin Caracaș. As regards the activity of
    medical doctor Constantin Caracaș, what I can say is that he hailed from a
    family of Greek medical doctors. His father as well as his brother were medical
    doctors, and after completing his studies in Vienna he settled in Bucharest where
    he acquired a certain fame also because he implemented and generalized the
    smallpox vaccine.






    Since it belonged to a monastery, the Saint Panteleimon Hospital
    mainly treated the downtrodden. Yet contagious diseases took their toll on the
    entire population, so it was also in the first half of the 19th
    century that the first vaccination campaigns also began in Bucharest. And, just
    as we have found out, medical doctor Caracas was on the frontline. One of the
    old medical documents that has been preserved to this day is the vaccination
    Regulation of 1875.
    Mihaela Diana Sprânceana:




    Article 1 stipulated that
    vaccination was mandatory for the entire population, while article 2 stipulated
    that any given child was to be vaccinated during the first year of his life,
    save for the diseased or the sickly, for whom vaccination was optional. Revaccination
    was made at the age of 7, and during the smallpox epidemic vaccination became
    mandatory. Article 7 clearly stipulated that the persons who failed to produce a
    document proving they had been successfully vaccinated were denied access to all
    public services. It is exactly what happens today with those green passes
    without which you do not get access to malls or certain institutions unless you
    produce them. During the vaccination operation proper and for the control of the
    operation, physicians will be accompanied by a local police agent in urban
    areas, while in the rural communes they are accompanied by the mayor or one of
    his delegates, just as it happens today in the vaccination centres, where the
    police and the gendarmerie are present. The booster rollout, in the urban areas
    will be administered by the town’s physicians, personally, while for the rural
    communes it will be administered by the county’s board-certified physician or
    one of his delegates, twice a year, on previously-set dates.
    As
    for the Saint Panteleimon Foundation, in 1869 it was rebuilt from scratch, this
    time with a spare-bed capacity of 80 beds. During the inter-war years, the
    number of sections grew, including a surgery section, an internal medicine as
    well as a nervous disease service. In the final years of the communist regime,
    and mostly after the 1977 tremor, the hospital and the church were in an advanced
    state of degradation Towards the late 1980s, the hospital and the monastery alike
    were demolished to make room for a hotel-and-restaurant compound, the so-called
    Swan Compound, Complex Lebada in Romanian.

    (Translation by Eugen Nasta)

  • The epidemics in Romanian Principalities

    The epidemics in Romanian Principalities


    The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic
    has been hitting the headlines for almost two years now, worldwide, in the news
    program and in talk-shows. Physicians, psychologists, sociologists, educational
    experts as well as other categories of specialists have presented data from the
    stand point of their own branch of science, in a bid to draw relevant conclusions.
    Historians have also responded to the challenges of our times, even though their
    profession is closely linked to exploring the past. So, historians provided
    their own account of humankind’s past experiences related to epidemics. For us,
    Covid-19 has an identity of its own. And that because science in the 21st
    century has succeeded to notice it and analyse its behaviour. However, in the past,
    the agents of disease were not that very well known. At that time, fatality and
    doomed fate were considered the causes of plagues by the vast majority of
    people.


    Romania’s National History
    Museum and Romania’s National Archives jointly staged an exhibition themed Epidemics
    in the history of Romanian Principalities. The former institution played host
    to the exhibition. In 2021, Romania’s National Archives celebrate 190 years of
    existence. The Archives were founded in 1831, at a time when the Organic Regulation
    was issued and which was an early version of a constitution in the
    principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia. By way of celebration for its 190 years
    of existence, the national Archives presented visitors with relevant documents
    for the plagues that hit Wallachia and Moldavia in the past: the contagions of
    cholera, typhoid fever, exanthematous typhus and Spanish flu. Archivist Claudiu
    Turcitu was the coordinator of the exhibition. He gave us details on the exhibition
    proper and its follow-up.


    Claudiu Turcitu:

    In our undertaking,
    we sought to make the documents visible to the lay public, under the present
    circumstances. And what better documents we could make visible for them, other
    than those pertaining to plagues, now that we’re celebrating The National Archives
    190 years of existence. That’s how we got the idea of mounting this exhibition,
    all the more so as we’re also preparing a volume, an edition of documents related
    to the quarantines service.


    Photocopies as well as original
    documents are among the exhibits. Reproductions of documents include photographs,
    maps, charts, diary pages, church official acts, official notes, personal
    notes. But the oldest document the National Archives presented to the public
    dates form the 17th century, it was also issued at the time of a plague,
    the disease that claimed the lives of the biggest number of people until the 19th
    century. On the day of March 12, 1637, Nedelco gave Gligor an acre of vineyard,
    tools and money found in the house of his brother, Tudor, so that Gligor may
    get in there and take out his woman and his little boys who had died of plague,
    and bury them, since nobody could be found to see to their interment. From another
    documents dated September 1657, we find out that a one Petre Epure had given father
    Negutu and his sons some apple trees during the plague, when his wife and
    children had died without taking the Communion.


    Claudiu Turcitu:

    We started
    off from document issued in the year 1637. We grouped them according to the
    main plagues that struck the Romanian principalities until 1918, being aware of
    the existing space constraints. The first document dates from the time of the plague
    and is a zapis, a certifying signed document, from a person, for the
    burial of those who had died because of the plague. Then we go through
    documents dated 1813, at the time of Caragea’s harrowing plague. We even have a
    hrisov, a charter, from 1813, signed by Caragea for the Dudesti hospital
    which had been previously prepared, in 1789, for those who suffered from the
    plague.


    While visiting the
    exhibition, we also read that in 1827, Ahmed pasha in Nicopole on the river Danube’s
    south bank, allowed the free circulation to the north bank of the river only in
    the Teleorman river area, where the quarantine was instated. Elsewhere in the
    principality of Wallachia, people still had to cope with the violent manifestations
    of the plague. A document, which is relevant even for the year of 1831, is the
    prayer written by a one Stan, a parish Clerk with the Coltea monastery, located
    nearby the hospital with the same name in Bucharest. Those were the harrowing
    years of the cholera epidemic which had terrified the entire population of
    Wallachia. Another noteworthy document is the executive order issued on
    February 14, 1846, by Wallachian ruler Gheorghe
    Bibescu, whereby parents had to get their children vaccinated against the
    chicken pox. Apart from the plague, the exhibition presents the other
    epidemiological scourges that hit the Romanian society in the 19th century
    and in the first decades of the 20th century.



    Claudiu Turcitu:


    We then
    go through the cholera epidemic with documents that are part of the War
    Ministry’s quarantines service collection, private documents actually. There
    are letters and impressions of the personalities of that time having to do with
    the symptoms of the cholera epidemic, with the treatment, with the medical recipes
    used to contain the cholera epidemic, which lasted rather long. We then go through
    the exanthematous typhus, then there is another epidemic that broke out towards
    the end of World War One, namely the Spanish flu. We’re closing the exhibition with
    Queen Marie’s notebooks. We rounded off the exhibition with original documents
    issued by the interior office of the High Steward (The Interior Ministry) and
    by the War Ministry, the Ion I. C. Bratianu private collection, actually a report
    compiled in a bid to get the funding that was required for the exanthematous typhus.


    In the past, the
    epidemics struck the Romanian territory with a devastating force and people
    know how to cope with the epidemics. However, in our times, in the technological world
    we live in, we can easily imagine an aseptic future, yet microbiology has not
    had the last word yet.

    (Translated by Eugen Nasta)


  • Tradition and innovation in Romania’s literary circles

    Tradition and innovation in Romania’s literary circles

    Literary circles are essential
    for the evolution of literature. Romanian literature has never been in short
    supply of such circles, especially during the country’s modernization and in
    its bid to harmonize domestic literature with the Western one. From the second
    half of the 19th century and until the instatement of communism, several
    noted literary circles had a strong bearing on Romanian literature. Among them,
    worth mentioning is Junimea, a literary circle founded in Iasi, in the north-east,
    in 1863, by a group of Romanian intellectuals with civic and political involvement,
    headed by Titu Maiorescu. Sburatorul is another noted literary circle, founded in
    Bucharest by professor and literary critic E. Lovinescu in the early 1920s. At
    that time, Sburatorul was responsible for the synchronization of Romanian
    literature with the literary trends of Western Europe. Yet apart from those two important literary
    circles, many other circles existed in Bucharest, some of them staged by aristocrats
    with artistic leanings, while other circles were initiated by bohemian artists,
    who were rather poor. As for the literary circles in Bucharest, they were
    connected to the rhythms of the city, turning the houses and the streets where
    they were held into the capital city’s mythical, legendary places.


    Victoria Dragu-Dimitriu’s recently-published
    volume, Tales of old-time literary circles of Bucharest, traces the
    biography of those places, laden with the atmosphere of old-time artistic and literary
    debates. Also, the book reshapes a literary geography that has been lost,
    partially, since some of the historical buildings had been demolished because
    of a dictatorial regime’s desperate need to erase as many traces of the past as
    possible. One such example is Titu Maiorescu’s house located in the city centre
    of Bucharest, a place where in late 19th century the last Junimea literary
    circle sessions were held and where Mihai Eminescu got round to reading an
    early version of his poem The Morning Star, Luceafarul in Romanian. However, not
    exactly at the heart of Bucharest, but on one of the nearby streets which
    survived to this day, preserving its historical flavour almost unaltered, the
    villa is still standing, where the Zoe Mandrea’s literary circle used to be held.
    Bucharesters are very familiar with the street where you can find the villa, since
    it is on the same street that Radio Romania’s main building can also be found.
    We’re speaking about General Berthelot Street of today, whose name has been
    changed many times throughout the years, just as the house where boyar lady Zoe
    Mandrea used to live changed its many owners, in time, today serving as the…headquarters
    of a police station.


    Victoria
    Dragu-Dimitriu gave details on what was going on in that literary circle in
    the final years of the 19th century.


    They never
    called it a literary circle, as far as I remember, since it was, in fact, a
    literary salon. At that time the name of the street was Fantanii, the Fountain
    Street. Those who attended Zoe Mandrea’s salon showed up walking along Fountain
    Street and there were not few people attending, and there were not only members
    of the Romanian aristocracy or of the intellectuals in very high positions,
    there were also noted writers. The spoilt guests of the literary circle were Barbu Ștefănescu-Delavrancea and Alexandru Vlahuță. But Eminescu would
    come as well, there even was a time when he used to come more often, I think, Titu Maiorescu also
    came, himself and his family. Many people of noble origin had been wandering
    through, there.


    In
    the first part of the 20th century, the literary avant-garde also had its own
    literary circles that were extremely non-conformist, they were held right on
    the streets of Bucharest, nearby the Lazar high-school, for instance, where Demetru Dem. Demetrescu-Buzău,
    used to be a pupil, he was the weird author whose penname was Urmuz. When still
    in high-school, himself and his gang of maverick class-mates waylaid passers-by
    who were walking close to the high school or those walking a bit farther, on the
    Dambovita river quay, nay, they even crossed the river towards the former Uranus
    district. But what Bucharesters used to say about that slapdash literary
    circle?

    Victoria Dragu-Dimitriu:


    Not everybody was happy to be waylaid
    in the street with a supplication uttered in a very deep voice: If you must
    know, as a matter of fact, Romanian letters have not died and there still exist
    youngsters who have kept on writing And if the waylaid person was a wee bit
    more sensitive, they were the target of the very poem who made Urmuz famous, Well,
    some chroniclers, they say     or other fragments of prose, early attempts along
    the way of that prose of his Urmuz bequeathed us. The one giving the account of
    this episode, not only was he a witness, he also was a participant. I’m
    speaking about George Ciprian, the actor who also was a playwright, with his play
    that enjoyed so many stage performances ,The man with the jade. For us,
    though, pride of place holds The Drake’s head, another play where those teenagers’
    reckless adventure was simply transposed on stage. And Ciprian, this time in
    his book of memoirs and not in The Drake’s head, tells us the last performance was
    given right in the principal’s office, where three or four boys and several
    other classmates that had gone with them performed a dance around the
    principal, who was flabbergasted. Since they were very good pupils, they were
    forgiven beforehand.


    The
    houses that played host to most of the sessions of the Sburatorul literary
    circle no longer exist either. However, the flat in the Elisabeta Boulevard,
    opposite the Law School building, stood the test of time, it was the flat where
    E. Lovinescu moved shortly before his death, in the summer of 1943.

    Victoria Dragu-Dimitriu.


    What we have here
    is a heroic story. It is the story of Lovinescu’s wife, his ex-wife, in fact, Ecaterina Bălăcioiu Lovinescu, who stayed in the house inherited by
    their daughter, Monica, after Lovinescu’s death in the summer of 1943. Monica
    Lovinescu, as we all know, left for Paris in 1946, in very difficult and very
    dramatic circumstance, and that extraordinary lady, her mother, French teacher Mrs
    Ecaterina Bălăcioiu remained in the house, trying to continue the literary
    circle sessions Monica Lovinescu herself, while still in the country, presided,
    with several other people by her side, of course. But when Monica left, her
    mother continued the literary circles for six or seven more sessions about
    which I found out for the first time ever from Ecaterina Bălăcioiu’s letters to
    her daughter, Monica. The letters were published in two volumes that simply brought
    centre-stage, in Romanian literature, a new and a great writer of an
    extraordinary psychological strength, a writer who did not intend to write
    literature proper and who wasn’t even aware she was writing literature, in her unnerving
    honesty to depict what was going on in that country and her burning longing for
    her daughter. The book is absolutely
    formidable, and thanks to her we came across a great writer.
    Thanks to Ecaterina Balacioiu’s letters to Monica Lovinescu we have the third
    great Lovinescu in Romanian writer.


    Although she failed to resurrect the literary
    circle, E. Lovinescu’s former wife managed to save some of the literary critic’s
    manuscripts, condemned to destruction by the communist authorities. We recall
    that those authorities nationalized the flat and threw Ecaterina Balacioiu in
    jail. She was well over 70 at that time.

    (Translation by Eugen Nasta)





  • Early Radio Broadcasting in Romania

    Early Radio Broadcasting in Romania

    Radio was one of the colossal inventions of the 19th century, revolutionizing exchange of information. It is so much faster in disseminating information than the written press or the telegraph, but, as it always happens, it was surpassed by subsequent inventions, such as television and the Internet. However, this late 19th century invention is by no means obsolete. Radio continues to prove itself to this day as a much needed technology.




    Romania was looking into radio broadcasting in the early 20th century, and the first radio telegraph station opened in 1908 in Constanta, on the Black Sea. It belonged to the Romanian Maritime Services. However, 20 years were to pass until an official public radio service started broadcasting. The year 1928 is considered the beginning of uninterrupted broadcasts by the national station. We will try to reconstruct the history of radio broadcasting before 1928 with Professor Radu Grigorovici, who recorded in 2001 an interview with the Romanian public broadcaster Center for Oral History. During WWII he worked in the Press Censorship Office, which also covered radio stations. Grigorovici recalled the effort to put together radio broadcasting in Romania:


    “They were attempting to build a station on the third story of the building where mathematician Horia Hulubei was teaching. There was a lecturer there teaching, I think he was with the institute of electrical engineering. Older colleagues told me how they worked, they had the broadcasting station on the third floor, and the reception station on the second floor, in the school of acoustic and optical studies. They would go out in the hallway, and, through a chain of four people they would ask: Is it working? Sometimes the answer was yes, other times it was no. This is how they worked back then.”




    Memories from youth are the fondest in a lifetime. People, objects, situations, they become pleasant memories and laden with nostalgia throughout the years. For Radu Grigorovici, the encounter with radio broadcasting was due to meeting the people who were dedicated to the new technology.


    “I can tell you that I saw my first radio set in Cernauti, around 1921 or 1922. I was a kid, and living in the hospital and maternity where my mother was the manager of the maternity and obstetrics wards. Professor Eugen Badarau, who was teaching physics in Cernauti, lived on a street in the outskirts of the city. He was from Bessarabia, and had studied in Austria and Italy, then worked in St. Petersburg, where he had fled the Russian Revolution. He came to Romania, and was appointed a teacher of experimental physics in Cernauti. There he built his first radio set, and, knowing my dad and being neighbors, one evening the called us over to listen to the radio.”




    Radu Gregorovici was in Bukovina, a former Austro-Hungarian province, where his father, a member of Parliament, militated for the union with Romania. There he saw for the first time in his life the most fascinating means of keeping in touch with the world:


    “It was a rectangular box, about 40 or 50 cm to a side, with many Miniwatt lamps. They were made by Philips under the Miniwatt brand name, which consumed less power. There were 5 or 6 lamps, as well as all sorts of condensers, transformers, and so on. Everything was visible from the outside. Controlling the amplification was done by two coils that could be brought closer, or brought further apart, bringing up the volume. If you went too loud, it would start feeding back with a whistle. Listening was by headphone only, which were on a rod, and could be listened to by five or six people. That was all the set could do, and we were listening to long wave stations within range. There was no Radio Bucharest yet, but there were stations in Moscow, Warsaw, Vienna, Paris, there was the German one near Berlin, and on good days we could even catch England. I also could get a music station in Budapest.”




    After that, Radu Grigorovici could get his own radio sets, and get to know the world with them:


    “I was still in Cernauti, it must have been before 1935, and I bought a Philips, it already had buttons on the sides. It was very modern, as it was locked inside a plastic case, with access only to the lamps, which you had to change sometimes. I traded that for a Fileta set, a small one, it was cheap and could get short and long waves. With that Fileta I was tuning in to the BBC during the war, it was strong and was not being jammed. The Romanian language stations were jammed. I had experience with French stations and with BBC French, which broadcast a lot of propaganda, and we were interested in correct news. That was my opportunity to learn English.”

  • The early days of medicine in Romanian Principalities

    The early days of medicine in Romanian Principalities

  • Romanian socialist-era cars

    Romanian socialist-era cars

    Retromobil
    Club Romania, an association that has over 3,000 members around the country,
    recently organised together with the Contemporary Art Museum in Bucharest an
    exhibition entitled Socialist cars. Several dozen cars were on display on the
    pedestrian area in front of the museum, affording visitors a glimpse into Romania’s
    car making past. The cars on show all belonged to Romanian private individuals
    or state institutions and were in circulation between 1964 and 1989, during the
    communist regime. This explains the title of the exhibition, which is not only
    about cars, but also about this historical period and the lives of the Romanian
    people at the time.




    We caught
    up with Șerban Cornaciu, the deputy president of Retromobil Club Romania and
    the organiser of the exhibition, who told us why the Contemporary Art Museum
    was the perfect venue for this event:




    The exhibition
    is a counterpart to the collection of socialist realist art hosted by the museum
    and consists of a selection of cars made between 1964 and 1989 and which were driven
    in Bucharest. The idea was to try to recreate the atmosphere in society and the
    lives of the people at the time through a series of exhibits and the cars that
    could be found in the city. We are trying to tell the story of how these cars
    came to be owned by people, how they were bought, who drove them and how people
    who used these cars during socialism used to live.




    20 cars,
    a van, a bus, a truck and 4 motorcycles were on display in the exhibition
    dedicated to socialist cars. Most of them were manufactured in Romania. Seven
    of the cars were the Dacia 1300 model, which was the most popular car in Romania
    before 1989 and which used to be made at a factory in Pitești. Three of these
    cars were the standard Dacia 1300 model, one the sports version, a Dacia 1100
    model and a Dacia 1300 model that was used by the police, as well as a Dacia
    2000 used by the communist president Nicolae Ceaușescu and senior party figures
    during official trips. Other Romanian brands in the exhibition is the Oltcit
    Special model manufactured in Craiova before 1989 and the Aro off-road vehicle,
    of which three models were on display: two Aro 243 cars, an Aro M461 C car and
    an Aro Dacia 10 model.

    Foreign brands also featured in the vintage car exhibition,
    including three Soviet brands, namely the famous Moskvitch, Volga and Lada. A Volga
    M 21 car made in 1961 used by high officials was one of the highlights of the
    exhibition. The Moskvitch 403 model was one of the earliest mass-produced cars,
    and the Lada 1200 model was one of the most reliable. The famous Trabant 601
    could not have missed from an exhibition dedicated to socialist cars. Trabi,
    as this car was lovingly named by its many fans, used to be manufactured in the
    former German Democratic Republic and was in high demand in its heyday,
    including in Romania. Western brands were represented in the exhibition by a
    Mercedes 2200, two Volkswagen Beatles and a Fiat 850, all of which were very popular
    in those times.

    A TV van, A Roman Diesel bus and a Carpați truck, all of which
    were manufactured in Romania, were the most unexpected exhibits. Organiser Serban
    Cornaciu explains:




    Each
    exhibit has its own special story. They were owned by the state. I’m thinking
    of the Roman Diesel bus, which is 11.3 metres in length, and the cars exported
    by Romania during the socialist period and which were bought back by some of
    our club members in an attempt to preserve the technical heritage of Romania.
    These cars had been exported to Hungary and France and my colleagues bought
    them back and restored them. The exhibition also contains a rare exhibit, a TV
    van which used to be driven in the 1970s and was one of the first to be used by
    the Romanian state. You can also see a Carpați 4 X 4 army truck, whose every piece
    was carefully restored.






    Two
    BMW German motorcycles and the Romanian counterparts, the famous Mobra and Carpați,
    were also on display at the exhibition dedicated to socialist-era cars. Organiser
    Șerban Cornaciu tells us more:


    I
    believe it is the duty of us from Retromobil to show the cars in our collection
    to the public and our communities. Our greatest joy is to be able to bring them
    all together.






    The exhibition
    dedicated to Romanian socialist-era cars was also an opportunity to find out more
    about the Romanian car-making industry before 1989.