Iași, chronology and cultural history
The history of a city is rarely linear and completely understandable. Even without being highly enigmatic, the story of the past of Iași city seems rather dramatic and turbulent. We do not know the origin of its name, the moment of its “birth” as an urban settlement, or even some key dates in its history, such as its transformation into the sole capital of the Principality of Moldavia. Therefore, when discussing its history, we should refer more to historical processes, phenomena, and developments over time than to a rigid chronology.
Furthermore, this history cannot be separated from a series of constants and landmarks that have determined its historical evolution. First of all, the relief. Without being a natural fortress per se, the city is nevertheless protected by a generous relief. Its centre is located on a high, fairly extensive plateau in the shape of a hexagon bordered by the wide valley of the Bahlui River, with its tributaries, and the proximity of the Prut River bed. On the opposite side between the North and East, like the hills near the city, the height of Copou protects the city from the harsh steppe climate and some military attacks.
Topographically, the city is located at the meeting point between the forms of the Central Moldovan Plateau ( ) and the plains of Moldova, which opens up the horizon both to the left and right of the Prut River, but especially near an important ford of the Prut. Both the soil and the climate offer satisfactory conditions for an agrarian economy that has ensured the subsistence of the population here. In addition to this, we can mention the relatively central position, in the context of the evolution of the medieval state of Moldova, at a reasonable distance from the Poles, Hungarians and Turks, on a branch of the “Moldovan road”, which in the Middle Ages was part of the network of trade routes linking Southern Europe with the Baltic Sea. However, in the absence of heights that could be fortified, the city was exposed to several destructive invasions.
The historical evolution of the city can be systematised into five distinct stages: 1. The beginnings; 2. 1564-1800: the refoundation: the birth of the capital city; 3. 1800-1862: the heyday; 4. 1862-1945: new modernity and relative decline; 5. 1945-2021: modernisation through tabula rasa. I will take advantage of this periodisation to review both the historical and political evolution of the city and a series of elements of cultural history that have marked this evolution.
1. The embryonic city: the market town, the customs office, the royal court
The historical origins of the city are difficult to reconstruct, both chronologically and geographically. Was it a city that was founded or “born” spontaneously? In a way, both versions are historically grounded, but obviously they do not overlap chronologically. Even if we cannot speak of a colony city or a foundation by “ukase” (decree) the city nevertheless owes its existence to the political decision to establish the political capital here.
However, even if we do not yet know the historical circumstances in which the “market” of Iași appeared and developed, in its first phase of evolution, Iași was an organic city. In recent years, archaeological research has increasingly confirmed the existence of a settlement area around Iași in previous centuries, perhaps even earlier. However, these were modest settlements that did not offer much prospect for genuine urban development. Instead, the central platform of the city offered excellent conditions for an economic and military centre that could directly display its power. Here, probably in the 14th century, a trading centre emerged, which developed under favourable circumstances, including, probably, the establishment of a royal customs office, through the economic consolidation of some old settlements.
The fact is that the city of Iași does not have a founding document, in the proper sense, and therefore does not have a “birth” date. This means that it may be older than the first documentary references, both of which are indirect: first, in a Russian chronicle, the Novgorod Chronicle, probably written between 1388 and 1391, and then in an internal document from the court of Alexandru cel Bun dated October 8, 1408. Issued in Suceava, this was a customs privilege granted to merchants from Lviv for their trade with the “Tatar parts”, a reference perhaps more important than that concerning the existence of the city, as its position as a royal customs post would determine, among other things, its destiny in the following centuries.
Alongside its position as a royal customs post, its favourable geographical location for trade, and its natural agricultural economy, another important factor in its development was the presence of a royal court in Iași during those years, as attested by a document from Alexandru cel Bun, but especially by the first chancellery act issued in Iași on May 25, 1434 by Stephen II. A few months later (October 8,1434), another document from this ruler explicitly mentioned “our court in Iași,” in the well-known context of medieval itinerancy: the custom of medieval rulers to move their court from one important city to another in order to better communicate their power, fulfil their role as supreme judge, and for purely political reasons. Thus, for a time, a royal court operated in Iași alongside others such as those in Hârlău, Vaslui, Bacău, Roman, etc., while the royal seat remained in Suceava.
Stephen the Great expanded the royal court in Iași and was the first ruler to build a royal church in Iași, St. Nicholas (1492). According to some interpretations, he even intended to fortify the entire settlement, although he preferred Hârlău as his summer residence. However, his successors gave the city increasing importance as the geopolitical balance between the three powers of the time (Hungary, Poland and the Ottoman Empire) shifted in favour of the Ottomans at the beginning of the 16th century. Thus, after Turkey became the dominant power, the rulers of Moldavia began to view Poland as a threat.
This is the context in which Alexandru Lăpușneanu, during his second reign, granted Iași a status of pre-eminence over the seat fortress, Suceava. The year 1564, which is generally given as the date for the investiture of Iași as the capital of Moldavia, should be taken as a conventional reference. In fact, there was a longer process in which a duality was observed from this point of view. The transfer process would only be fully completed in the following century when the seat of the metropolitan church moved to Iași in 1677, during the reign of a pre-Phanariot ruler, Antonie Ruset.
2. The birth of the capital city: Iași between 1564 and 1800
The choice of Iași as the capital of the medieval state of Moldavia seems inexplicable today. Except for a slightly milder climate than in the Siret Valley, the initial centre of Moldova’s state life, Iași had no outstanding natural advantages: active military fortifications, a port, access to several trade routes, valuable natural resources, etc. Initially, in fact, the market town was in competition with Târgu Frumos, Vaslui and Hârlău. Unlike Suceava, in the absence of a large fortress, Iași was more exposed from this point of view.
The fear of Poland and Lăpușneanu’s wish to maintain privileged relations with the Porte will therefore have weighed heavily in the ruler’s decision. Also, the growing economic importance of Iași, according to some accounts, will have played a role as well. At the same time, in the midst of a process of political strengthening and centralisation, the geographical position of the city, rather in the centre of Moldavia, allowed the ruler better control of the territory, respectively, a centralisation of the administration.
The fact is that the new position as a political centre meant, practically, a re-founding of the city. It is true that its position as capital was slow to consolidate, only becoming established in the second third of the 16th century, during the reign of Vasile Lupu, as part of a process in which the nature of princely power itself was changing: from being essentially military, power was now based on administrative and economic means. At the same time, as the authority of the reign became more and more extensive, the role of the capital, as the seat of power itself, grew. Even if we do not know exactly when this happened, from the accounts of foreign travellers we can understand that already in the 17th century, Iași began to appear more and more as the dominant economic and demographic city of medieval Moldavia. At the same time, Iași became the seat of a county in Central Moldavia, the territory of which stretched mainly beyond the Prut River.
This rise in the city’s position within the state was a key factor in its urban development. First visible through the enlargement of the perimeter of the royal court towards the end of the 16th century, this evolution then manifested itself through the expansion of the city’s boundaries to the North, on the central plateau, encompassing the current Lăpușneanu Street, part of Independenței Boulevard, and the area later known as Muntenimea. This is how the Upper Town was formed, while the old centre around the royal court became the Lower Town, as well as a series of neighbourhoods generally linked to the professional occupations of most of the inhabitants here, veritable urban micro-communities with their own churches and cemeteries. A number of urban architectural elements have been preserved from this period, especially religious ones (the churches of Trei Ierarhi, Golia, Saint Sava, Talpalari), as well as some of the royal foundations on the hills surrounding the city: Cetățuia, Galata or Bârnova.
In the second half of the 18th century, despite recurrent invasions, we see some rudiments of urban policy, from the installation of the water supply from Ciric during the reign of Grigore Ghica III to hospitals, offices for the poor and institutional structures for education and public health: The Vestry of Public Education and Saint Spiridon Vestry, which would remain functional into the following century. Also, starting with the second half of the 17th century, a process of integration of the Bahlui plain and the surrounding hills (Galata, Cetățui, Bârnova, Aroneanu, Copou) into the life of the city took place, an action that would only be completed in the second half of the 20th century.
From a cultural point of view, the actions of some great figures, including Vasile Lupu, Nicolae and Alexandru Mavrocordat, and Grigore Alexandru Ghica, are noteworthy. In particular, during the reign of Vasile Lupu, a ruler with imperial ambitions, Iași positioned itself for the first time on the map of Orthodoxy, hosting the Synod of Iași in 1642, as well as the relics of Saint Parascheva, which would become the subject of a great tradition of religious pilgrimage in the Orthodox world. In the same context, Vasile Lupu founded a college in 1640, which operated for more than a decade and inaugurated a tradition of princely concern in this direction, later resumed by some Phanariot rulers in the 18th century, notably through the founding of the Greek Academy in Iași in 1711, by Nicolae Mavrocordat. Also, on Vasile Lupu’s initiative, a printing press was brought to the country, where several books were printed, giving rise to a printing centre, the first in Moldova.
3. The heyday of a capital city: 1800-1862
At the beginning of the 19th century, Iași was a city searching for its identity. Although it had no competitors among the cities of Moldavia, especially after the disappearance of Suceava, Iași was still a medieval city, where Eastern influences were dominant, especially in terms of behaviour and daily life. In addition, culturally and politically, the city seemed more like part of the Greek world, itself under Ottoman influence or, at best, increasingly attracted to the myth of Russia as a liberator. But above all, the capital of the Principality of Moldavia had to face terrible trials caused by the long Russo-Turkish war at the beginning of the new century, which dramatically reduced its population (according to some sources to less than ten thousand inhabitants) and the loss of a large part of its territory, which meant both a reduction in its real power and, above all, its sudden projection into a situation of territorial marginality.
Nevertheless, especially after 1830, Iași experienced exceptional growth in all areas: demographically (reaching over 60,000 inhabitants in 1860), economically (with the emergence of modern economic sectors, from banks to production workshops), urban planning (roads, sewerage, public order) and even the first forms of urban self-management (the formation of the rudiments of local autonomy, with the appearance of the Eforia (Ephoroi) of Iasi City in 1835), but especially cultural: schools, theatres, press, etc. After 1821, Greek culture, which was in decline, was replaced by Western influence, especially French, in language, fashion, architecture, etc.
In terms of urban planning, we can say that today’s city took shape, at least partially, through the gradual attachment of nearby localities and market towns (Păcurari and Copou, followed by the market towns of Socola and Nicolina to the South and West and Tătărași to the East), but especially through the new buildings erected at that time, splendid Western-style, neoclassical constructions, numerous houses and even private palaces. After 1834, we can speak of genuine urban planning policies, both through the paving and widening of the main streets and through the introduction of construction standards, fire prevention measures, sanitary protection, etc. We can see the first public monuments, such as the obelisk in Copou, but especially the creation of urban spaces with an exclusively public role, such as the Copou Park.
One of the factors that influenced this development was massive immigration, mainly Jewish. We recall that, despite its somewhat peripheral geographical position in relation to the major European centres, Iași owed much of its status to its commercial activity. This meant that, from its very beginnings, as foreign travellers have noted, the city had a very heterogeneous population in terms of culture and religion, as can be seen from the large number of places of worship belonging to “foreign” populations: Jews, Armenians, Greeks, Catholics, Protestants, and even Turks. The number of guilds is remarkable, some linked to the extravagant consumption (the luxury industry), others to its position as a regional commercial centre, and some of them were made up of foreigners. Similarly, in the 19th century, the city developed thanks to the contribution of these newcomers: French and German immigrants in education, medicine, the arts, etc., and Jewish merchants and craftsmen who laid the foundations for a genuine exchange economy in Moldova and contributed to the transformation of Iași into a powerful economic centre. In fact, the proportion of the Jewish and non-Orthodox population grew spectacularly in the third to fifth decades of the 19th century, reaching almost the same in number with the Orthodox population.
Thus, Iași became not only a political capital but also an autonomous economic and intellectual centre of power, where we find both public institutions (especially schools) and, above all, private institutions, ranging from schools, printing houses and various publications to credit institutions and production workshops. At the same time, the city is no longer just a place to live and a commercial centre, a place of absolute power, but also a public space in the modern sense, intended for free interaction and, above all, for deliberations on community life. In particular, political decision-making no longer has a monopoly on politics, just as politics no longer belongs exclusively to the royal court. In addition to the debates in the Obșteasca Adunare (Public Assembly) (the representative institution of Moldova after 1834) or in the meetings of the Eforia of the City, aspects of public life, initially intellectual and later political, were discussed in cafés, reading rooms and the salons of the upper classes. Although extremely brief, the experience of the 1848 “revolution” in Iași shows the existence of tendencies towards the aggregation of public opinion, which would then take on a much more structured and effective form during the great confrontations of ideas surrounding the Union.
By the middle of the 19th century, Iași had become a place of intellectual norms and recognition. From sumptuous consumption, linked to the fashion and luxury industry, to the emergence of critical publications such as Dacia literară (1840), the life of the city vibrated to the rhythm of norms and trends, public discussions and criticism. Iași had become, one might say, an aristocratic and bohemian city. According to some information, around 1849, there were about six hundred boyar families living in Iași, around three hundred civil servants, fifty teachers and doctors, and a large number of foreigners (over five hundred), apart from the subjects of the foreign consulates in Iași, who were in fact local residents.
In this cosmopolitan space, where intellectual conversation was held in French or German, a strong cultural movement of pan-Romanian integration developed at the same time. Links with Bessarabia remained strong even after 1818, when the Russian authorities began to restrict direct ties, and despite censorship on the Prut River, exchanges of books and visits continued unabated even after the Russification of the Bessarabian elites became increasingly powerful. Writers from Bessarabia such as Alexandru Sturdza, Constantin Stamate, Alexandru Hajdeu, and Alecu Donici published in Iași, maintained strong ties with the intellectuals there, and some even settled in the capital of Moldavia.
4. 1862-1945: new modernity and comparative decline
After the Union of the Principalities and then the administrative unification that began with the transfer of the central administration of the state of Moldova to Bucharest (1862) and the communal law of March 1864, which created new local authorities and communities, the voices of those announcing the irreversible decline of Iași multiplied. The anti-unionist rebellion of May 1866 in Iași was an echo of these legitimate concerns. Even militant unionists were demanding compensation, but above all decentralisation, seeking on the one hand to bring more equity between the two old components of the 1859 Union, and at the same time to counterbalance the centralist drive of the authorities in Bucharest, who were increasingly ignoring Moldova, especially Iași.
The decline of Iași after the Union cannot be denied, and it remains a source of discontent and complexes to this day. But this decline is relative, especially when compared to the evolution of Bucharest. To the extent that it existed, Iași’s decline was particularly noticeable in the 1960s and 1970s, against the backdrop of a general decline in the Romanian state and economy, as well as the former capital’s difficulty in projecting a new “function” for itself within the newly emerging state structure. It is clear that the Union was a shock to Moldova’s economy, as we can see from the decline of the Iași press compared to the flourishing of the Bucharest press in the seventh and eighth decades of the 19th century.
Despite the pyramidal state design configured around the princely power, the Principality of Moldavia had not been excessively centralised until then, at least at the functional level. Even though there was a central budget in Iași, ministries that managed day-to-day life, a “national” army (the Land Militia), and even an incipient form of centralisation of the main public services, such as public order, education and health (through the two “agencies”, The Vestry of Public Education and Saint Spiridon Vestry, which had appeared during the Phanariot period), the rest of the services and public life were decentralised at the local level. Communications (the telegraph, the road network and the postal service) were more centralised, but they were still in a primitive form.
Therefore, in the short term, the effect of leaving the central administration was particularly noticeable in trade. In the long term, the effects will be seen mainly in Bucharest and then in other cities in Romania and in those areas where the importance of budget redistribution was significant: education, road and public building construction, military investments, etc. Thus, despite this initial and comparative “decline”, the development of Iași in the following decades was less affected by unification than one might think at first glance.
Towards the end of the 19th century, both public and private investments visibly transformed Iași. Thanks to its economy and government funds, Iași greatly expanded its urban area, and among other things, it could now completely encompass Copou. Monumental public buildings were also constructed, such as the University Palace (North wing), the Metropolitan Cathedral, the National Theatre, the Negruzzi High School (boarding school), the National High School, the Military School, the Central Railway Station, and then the Administrative Palace, while the churches Trei Ierarhi and Sf. Nicolae Domnesc were restored.
From a strictly urban planning perspective, the central area was redesigned, with the introduction of sewerage, public transport, modern water supply, etc. The central streets were paved, the parish cemeteries were abolished and modern cemeteries were established (Eternitatea, in the South-East, and Sfântul Vasile, in the West). Social housing was also built for workers, and new neighbourhoods were integrated into the city: Copou, Păcurari, Nicolina, Socola, Tătărași, Sărărie, Țicău, etc.
It is true that Iași is losing much of its influence over the province. The decline was symbolic, in terms of power, decision-making and normative authority. The initial impetus provided by Mihail Kogălniceanu’s initiative to found a university in 1860 materialised late, especially after 1880, when the University was granted the right to have a fourth faculty, the one of Medicine, and then to award doctorates. However, the University’s role became more prominent after 1918, when it hosted a large number of students from the territories recently annexed to Romania, Bessarabia and part of Bukovina. Of course, its position as the “war capital” between 1916 and 1918 also played a role in the city’s re-evaluation. However, the Union of 1918 gave Iași the illusion that it could once again become, even if only symbolically, the “capital of Moldavia,” a fact that did not happen, both due to the increasingly oppressive centralism of the Romanian state, namely competition with other cities better placed geographically or politically for budgetary resources, and the migration of local elites to the centre and, with it, the decomposition of civic spirit in Iași, the nationalisation or aggressive politicisation of the anti-centralist protest in Iași.
It is no coincidence that, as early as 1866, the people of Iași requested the new ruler, Carol, to relocate certain institutions, as had been promised at the time of the Union, including the coronation of the new ruler and even the establishment of a royal court in Iași, where the ruler would stay for half a year, the relocation of the Court of Cassation (immediately rejected by parliament), of the Court of Auditors, and even of the Holy Synod, as well as the construction of roads connecting Iași to Bucharest.
In addition to the presence of the University and the persistence of a local normative tradition (local pride), two other factors played a significant role in the impact of Iași’s loss of its position as political capital: the presence of a strong Jewish community and Iași’s connection to the railway network after 1871, first with Austrian Bukovina, Chernivtsi and Vienna, and then with Bucharest and Galați. In fact, the proximity to the Austrian world greatly mitigated the negative impact of the former capital of Moldavia’s eccentric location. The fact is that the economy of Iași shows great vitality. We know, for example, that in the interwar period there were sixty “light industry” workshops (knitwear factories, weaving mills, rope factories, etc.), mills, at least two oil factories, several breweries, slaughterhouses, a large cigarette factory, an iron foundry, rolling stock repair workshops, etc.
In terms of culture, the illusion of local resistance to the normative pressure of Bucharest seems even more vivid here. In 1863, the “Junimea” Society was founded, which enlivened public life for a while, including by initiating intellectual debates. Its publication, Convorbiri literare (1867), quickly established itself as the most important laboratory publication in the Romanian space, in which the great classics of Romanian literature would publish their works. The publication also showed itself to be the bearer of a will for normativity based on the promotion of “truth” in arts, sciences and politics, as well as on critical culture and the primacy of aesthetics in literature. After its relocation to Bucharest, two other publications from Iași attempted to continue this project in some way, in different registers and with different scopes: Contemporanul (1881), edited by the Nădejde brothers, and especially Viața Românească (1904), which was headed by G. Ibrăileanu and C. Stere from Bessarabia. This momentum faded somewhat after 1918, even though intellectual and artistic life expanded.
5. 1945-2021: Aggressive modernisation and social engineering
The war of the 1940s left a deep mark on the city, creating a disadvantage both aesthetically and, above all, economically. The massive reconstruction of the city began quite late and was brutal and destructive to its memory, on the same scale as the destruction caused by the war or the 1977 earthquake. A number of buildings that were symbols of the city, whether damaged by the war or earthquake or not, were simply demolished to make way for precarious architecture, oriented towards immediate utility and indebted to a Soviet-style aesthetic culture.
At the same time, massive industrialisation, coordinated centrally and based exclusively on public investment, which to a certain extent ignored both the specific nature of Iași, in terms of its economic tradition, and its geographical location, shaped both the economy and the architecture and public culture of Iași. After a long period during which Iași’s economy was dominated by knitwear factories, weavers and small mechanical workshops, the 1970s saw the emergence of large industrial units of chemical industry, machine building and even of heavy industry. After 1970 in particular, Iași became primarily a bedroom community in architectural terms, a factory town in economic terms, and a vast social engineering project in social and cultural terms.
This complete change in the city’s functions and role still defines the city today. On the one hand, the tabula rasa-like reconstruction, which focused on replacement rather than conservation, gives the impression of more spacious areas, significantly ignores urban aesthetics, and transformed Iași into an industrial city, and called its cultural identity into question. On the other hand, from a demographic and social point of view, it has profoundly changed its social dynamics and cultural references. The emergence of new neighbourhoods, with a homogeneous population employed in large industrial complexes, creates tension between the bedroom community and the heritage town, between the industrial town and the cultural town, between the “intellectuals” and the “workers”.
At the same time, culture has a new status, based on the totalitarian model of state-controlled culture. The quasi-complete institutionalisation of the ‘cultural industry’, from the press to entertainment and educational institutions, has completely transformed the status of the ‘creator’. He now becomes a state official and an agent of the regime’s propaganda service. State-controlled culture, propaganda, and the hegemonic institutionalisation of culture block other forms of creativity and cultural excellence, but support mediocre cultural forms, with some successes; survival, however, is the norm.
From a population of approximately 100,000 inhabitants in 1940, by the end of the 1960s, Iași had reached over 170,000, and by the fall of the regime, almost 300,000. In terms of ethnicity and religion, from almost an equal number at the end of the 1930s, in 1990, Jews were a community of a few hundred people, insignificant in number.
Communist hyper-centralisation further disconnected the city from its region of reference. Nevertheless, until the 1990s, Iași remained the main cultural centre for Moldova, especially for its central and northern parts. After 1990, however, in the context of the liberalisation of movement, globalisation and the reconfiguration of cultural power centres in Romania, the trend towards de-territorialisation in relation to Moldova became much more pronounced. The competition with cities such as Cluj, once on an equal footing, is now lost: the migration of talent and the reference to normative standards are oriented towards the west to a significant extent, and not only towards the old “centre”, Bucharest. From this point of view, the centrality of Iași is in obvious decline.
Instead of conclusions: the cultural heritage of the history of Iași as a usable past
The past is an ambiguous text that gives rise to a large number of interpretations. From the point of view of the present discussion, we may ask ourselves what remains of this past, what part of it is “useful” today for the development of the city? Can we use the historical past as cultural capital? Is Iași still a cultural capital? In order to answer these questions, we should take a brief inventory of the “cultural heritage” that Iași’s historical past offers us, and then see which values can open up the future of the city’s development.
Historical heritage must be viewed on several distinct levels: political, economic, cultural, symbolic. From the point of view of the present approach, these distinctions are difficult to apply, since a symbolic reading necessarily implies a global, holistic view, in which “culture” can be understood as implicit, as the fund of meaning that remains after the inevitable decontextualisation of historical facts in the process of constructing historiographical narratives. For example, the history of the city as a royal customs post can be understood culturally through the impact that this position had, on the one hand, on the development of the city in its early days and, on the other hand, through its role as a centre for mediating multiple interactions between individuals, policies, economic practices and cultural habits. From this point of view, historical Iași is first and foremost the product of commercial and cultural exchanges and interactions.
Similarly, with regard to the establishment of the political capital in Iași: in addition to its obvious economic and political implications, this event was also of great cultural importance, as culture, especially in the Middle Ages, had a strong symbolic significance in terms of royal power. For a long time, culture was a residual result of gestures of prestige or forms of piety and religious ceremony.
In fact, until the second half of the 19th century, culture was inseparable from politics, both because a series of political gestures could have secondary cultural implications and because the actors themselves did not separate them at the time. When Vasile Lupu built the Trei Ierarhi Church in Iași, where he founded an educational institution in Iași, which he equipped with a printing press, he designed the gesture as a religious undertaking, an act of faith. Today, however, historians speak mainly of the political stakes of this undertaking. The fact is that the church has remained one of the most important monuments in Iași, which has since become a royal necropolis (not only the remains of Vasile Lupu’s family are buried here, but also those of Dimitrie Cantemir and Alexandru-Ioan Cuza, relocated to this somewhat fraudulent space) but which at the same time reaffirms the symbolic function of the place, which transgresses the intentions of its founder and the practices of his era.
We also owe Vasile Lupu the most important religious phenomenon in Moldova and perhaps in the Romanian Orthodox world, through which Iași became the centre of attention for a few days: the bringing of the relics of Saint Paraschiva to Iași in June 1641. Similarly, we can speak of a political gesture, of legitimising the reign, as they were initially exhibited at Trei Ierarhi, but their religious and political importance changed both their location and function: Saint Parascheva, who never had any connection with Moldova during her lifetime, became the “Protector of Moldova”, the symbol of the power of the Metropolis of Moldova (which had not yet stabilised in Iași) and also the symbol of Iași. one of the few instruments through which the city can still claim a position of eminence in Moldova.
In fact, the cultural tradition of Iași is a mixture of voivodism, dramatic fractures caused by catastrophes such as military occupations or natural events (earthquakes or fires), and civic initiatives. Architecture, generally the most edifying and exploitable historical witness, is nevertheless recent. For various reasons, especially after the market town became a permanent royal court, Iași was the target of foreign armies, which occupied and sometimes terribly destroyed the city. In addition, major fires, the last of which, in 1827, which remained long in the city’s memory, destroyed this urban heritage. As a result, we have few monuments of urban architecture that date back further than the end of the 18th century.
The architecture in the first part of the city was dominated by wooden buildings, which were probably poorly preserved. The only building that has been somewhat preserved, at least as an architectural project, is the Sfântul Nicolae Domnesc Church in Iași, founded by Stephen the Great in 1492. Churches are generally the best preserved, but they have often been radically rebuilt, including the most precious jewel, Trei Ierarhi. Even the current Palace of Culture, considered a landmark of the city, is relatively recent, barely a century old since its opening. On the other hand, we also have important industrial and contemporary architecture, but this needs to be reconsidered, conceptualised and protected.
In this context, the phrase “cultural capital” seems to us to be a compensatory phrase, serving as self-consolation, especially for inactivity, marginalisation and the feeling of irremediable decline. After a similar formula (“Iași, the second capital”) fell into disuse, the phrase “Iași, the cultural capital of Romania” appeared at the beginning of the 20th century, but it became particularly prevalent after 1918, as a form of consideration that Iași should receive following the loss of its political centrality, which should have become “a cultural capital of Romania”, its intellectual centre, “the Heidelberg of Romania”, as N. Iorga saw it.
This idea, lacking a solid foundation and practical consequences, should not be abandoned, but exploited more effectively, both for the public in Iași and for the city’s image abroad. It is well known that nostalgia for the capital persisted in Iași long after the Union, being maintained both by the local elites and sometimes by those in Bucharest. Carol I visited Iași quite often, especially after the establishment of the monarchy in 188. In this vein, the king contributed to the construction of monumental buildings of the era, from the University Palace to the Administrative Palace (now the Palace of Culture). His successor, Ferdinand, did the same, making Iași his temporary capital during the First World War. A building that symbolises the cultural life of Iași, such as the Ferdinand Foundation, meant more than just a real estate project: it was a library, a scholarship system for students, and a source of support for other artistic and cultural activities. Today, such a foundation, which is private but has the full support of the state, is clearly linked to Iași.
In a way, the model of the break with a certain cultural tradition of Iași, the drama of its modernity, is represented by the Palace of Culture itself, the symbol of Iași’s power: built on the site of a splendid neoclassical palace, constructed at the beginning of the 19th century (and used for a time as a royal court), in the neo-Gothic style, imposed by Carol I, completely exotic to the cultural tradition of Iași, initially used as the seat of local administrative and judicial power, it was transformed into a museum centre, which aims to reflect the historical past of Moldova and Iași, respectively, as a regulatory centre of the historical memory of Moldova and Iași. This shift in functions is a substitute for normative power and best expresses the metaphor of a “city of culture”.
At the same time, this formula brings to our attention two directions for future action: the importance of the position of regional centre and partner in relation to the centre, but especially the importance of “cultural capital”, i.e. the general heritage of a community, from the level of education and cultural consumption to historical memory and how it is used. Iași has a number of cultural institutions of national importance (the National Theatre, the Romanian Opera, the Philharmonic, the University, and even the Eternity Cemetery), which can serve as anchors for such a policy.
Using this capital to rebuild ties with Bessarabia in particular may be the first step towards a more effective use of the title of “cultural capital”. In the 19th century, Iași was for a long time the main gateway to the two Romanian provinces. In addition to old family ties, intellectual ties were permanent, even if not always equally intense. We have already seen that some writers from Bessarabia published their works in Iași magazines, while others settled here, such as Alecu Donici, B.P. Hajdeu, and C. Stere. Especially after 1900, the press in Iași frequently published information from Bessarabia; C. Stere participated in the life of Bessarabia and played a key role in the decision of the Sfatul Țării (Country Council) in March 1918 to vote for annexation to the Kingdom of Romania. In the interwar period, starting in 1927, the University of Iași had a faculty in Chișinău. Also, with regard to Bukovina, Iași was the centre of the campaign destined to awaken Romanian society’s interest in Bukovina: here, in 1875, the statue of Grigore III Ghica was inaugurated as a symbol of resistance to the Habsburg occupation of Bukovina a hundred years earlier. The inauguration of the statue of Stephen the Great in 1883 was the occasion for a large demonstration in memory of Bukovina.
Therefore, in addition to their intrinsic value, their age and the functions attributed to them over time, veritable acts of reinterpretation, are the most important elements that can define a monument or a historical gesture as part of the “cultural heritage”. Thus, with regard to the inventory of “cultural heritage” that the historical past of Iași offers us, we could proceed to the following classification:
1. Pre-modern religious architecture: Trei Ierarhi Monastery; to this we can add religious monuments of historical and cultural value: Sfântul Nicolae Domnesc, Bărboi Church, Frumoasa, Golia Monastery, Cetățuia Monastery and Galata Monastery;
2. Pre-modern secular architecture: Dosoftei House, the ruins in the central area, St. Spiridon Tower;
3. Modern secular architecture: National Theatre, the Palace of Culture, the University Palace;
4. Multicultural heritage: Jewish, Greek, French, German, Russian, Armenian; let us not forget that Iași has had a Jewish community since its inception, which grew substantially after 1800-1830, becoming almost equal in number to the Romanian population in 1940; the economic role of this population was enormous; even if, unlike Bucharest, we have fewer Jewish intellectual figures who carried out their activities exclusively in Iași; we can thus celebrate the establishment of the Great Synagogue, one of the oldest in the country (1670), where the first Yiddish newspaper in the Principalities appeared in 1855, as well as the first Jewish theatre in the world (1876);
5. The great founding cultural gestures: the first college (1640), the beginnings of the Romanian-language press (1829, Albina Românească), the birth of the first scientific society in the Romanian world, the oldest Romanian scientific society: the Society of Doctors and Naturalists in Iași (March 1834); The beginnings of intellectual culture: the magazines Dacia literară (1840), Junimea (1863) and Convorbiri literare, Viața Românească, the beginnings of the university tradition (the University, 1860), the beginnings of the theatre movement in the Principalities (1816, the theatre in Copou, 1840);
6. Political events of prime importance: the Synod of Iași (1642), the Peace of Iași (January 1792, between the Russians and the Turks); the election of Alexandru-Ioan Cuza as ruler of Moldavia, 1916-1918, Iași becomes the wartime capital;
7. Contemporary and industrial architecture: Turkish baths, industrial halls (Nicolina, Cigarette Factory)
8. Funerary architecture and memorial sites: Eternitatea Cemetery, Jewish Cemetery, military cemeteries, etc.
Protecting, celebrating and integrating it into city life through tourism, education and culture are the three coordinates for using this past.
