Marius CHELCU, Merchants and Craftsmen in a Changing World (Mid-19th Century), in „Études Balkaniques”, LVIII, 2022, 2, Sofia, p. 44-57., 2022
The study aims to identify some of the worries, difficulties, and dissatisfactions experienced by... more The study aims to identify some of the worries, difficulties, and dissatisfactions experienced by certain categories of inhabitants within Moldavian towns.
They had to face the changes brought to the economic system at the continental level, manifested in space which, from the 17th to the late 18th century, was under the overwhelming influence of the Ottoman economic system. Among the challenges experienced by the merchants and artisans in a changing world, such as that of the first half of the 19th century, I mention the organisation into guilds, the supremacy of the western economy, the first attempts to constitute a free market, as well as competition and protectionism. Such transformations influence individual and mostly group attitudes, through the invocation of old privileges and traditions or the protection of the representatives of local power or foreign consulates. They also invoked, in a rather confused manner at first, but then increasingly more clearly, the value of free trade. The disturbance of the old order and the volatility of the new
one left traces in the files within various collections of the Archives in Iaşi; the study relies on these sources.
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Papers by Marius Chelcu
In Paris, there is an organisation called The Association of Descendants of Gustave Eiffel, which keeps track of all the works executed by the Eiffel company; the association comprises the architect’s descendants and experts certifying the works ascribed to Eiffel. To commemorate the centenary of the architect’s death in 2023, Radio France International sent a reporter called Cristina Teacă to Romania to search and record Eiffel’s traces in this part of Europe, starting from the data provided by the association.
In Iaşi, the emissary of the French news agency came with a precise target: attesting to the existence of the railway bridge in Ungheni (it was the only work on which the Paris-based association had information that it would have been executed following the company’s plans).
Once she arrived, though, it became apparent that any Internet search for “Eiffel and Iaşi” provided at least four seemingly undeniable associations between the presence of the famous architect and the map of the Iaşi city and county.
In chronological order, they are as follows:
a. the wall and iron hall, i.e., the first market hall built in Iaşi in 1873;
b. the railway bridge from Ungheni (built in 1876);
c. Grand Hotel Traian, built on a metal structure in Union Square in 1880-1882;
d. Petre P. Carp’s mausoleum in Ţibăneşti (built in 1885).
Upon a more thorough analysis of the evidence, nuances emerge concerning all these landmarks, providing new leads. It proves there is no reliable evidence for ascribing the metal-structure buildings in Iaşi to Eiffel and his company. Ultimately, what people who claim that Eiffel designed those buildings in Iaşi neglected or omitted to state is that numerous architects and architectural companies designed exquisite metal structures for buildings during the second half of the 19th century, with Gustave Eiffel as the tip of the iceberg. The supreme evidence of the knowledge acquired by an entire generation of engineers and architects in functional architecture based on metal structure is the tower of the International Exhibition, which has become the emblem of the French capital.
They had to face the changes brought to the economic system at the continental level, manifested in space which, from the 17th to the late 18th century, was under the overwhelming influence of the Ottoman economic system. Among the challenges experienced by the merchants and artisans in a changing world, such as that of the first half of the 19th century, I mention the organisation into guilds, the supremacy of the western economy, the first attempts to constitute a free market, as well as competition and protectionism. Such transformations influence individual and mostly group attitudes, through the invocation of old privileges and traditions or the protection of the representatives of local power or foreign consulates. They also invoked, in a rather confused manner at first, but then increasingly more clearly, the value of free trade. The disturbance of the old order and the volatility of the new
one left traces in the files within various collections of the Archives in Iaşi; the study relies on these sources.
the virtue of Christian mercy. Therefore, the Church, regarded as a social organism and in order to meet the needs of the Christian divine service, has always been in need of earthly property for the support of its servants and to help those who needed its protection. “Support of the needy” has actually been the strongest justification for the acquisition of properties, as the protection of the poor, of the sick, of widows and of orphans has led the church towards the accomplishment of one of its primary goals. The Monastery Immaculate Mother of God in Roman is a religious foundation created in the mid-eighteenth century, during the rule of Prince Constantin Racoviță. Our research starts from the contents of an income and expense lists, a document was elaborated in the month of June 1785. It had two sections covering four pages. In the first and shorter section, incomes were written down, while the second one (more complicated) contained the expenditures.
This research represents a reconstruction of the urban evolution of a portion of the historical center of the city of Iasi, two lots located near the church known as the “White Church” (Biserica Albă), from the Fânăriei mahale. The first documents regarding these lots date from the middle of the 18th century. The analysis of the sources reveals that in the second half of the 18th century there were some wooden houses built on stone foundation, with basements underneath, destroyed by at least two devastating fires. After 1798 a house made of durable materials, stone and brick was built. That proved to be the place where, with some transformations and renovations, the Austrian Consulate in Iasi resides, from 1813 to 1833, then from 1846 to 1896. The interruption between 1833 and 1846 was due to a serious damage to the construction by another devastating fire, this time from 1833.
We managed to capture the existence of its building and its dependencies both in documents and in the plans of the town of Iasi drawn in the second half of the 18th century and in the following century. The building where the Austrian Consulate in Iasi worked was
demolished in 1989, following the implementation of a plan for the
systematization of the central area of Iasi.
This paper started from a personal curiosity concerning the beginnings of cycling in Iaşi and the identity of the protagonists for this new type of mobility in late 19th century and the first years of the 20th century. My aim was to point out the change of public perception, influenced even by
promoting bike riding by personalities of the time and I studied the administrative measures followed by the multiplication of bikes and cyclists in Iaşi.
The basis of the research is the content of a Memo of the people of Iaşi drafted up in the month of December 1918. The document is dated January 6, 1919, and it was created in order to be presented before King Ferdinand in Iaşi, on January 24, during his highly anticipated participation to the 60-year celebration of the Unification of Principalities.
The preamble of the document mentioned the sacrifices made by Iaşi and by Moldavia, both the recent ones – during the war – and those accumulated throughout the six decades from the constitution of the Romanian state. In the following lines, the wishes of people from Iaşi and of Moldavians in general were outlined. The text of the memo was accompanied by a list featuring several thousand signatures (as well as the full name of petitioners, their occupation and their address). Upon analyzing the list, I have concluded that the persons who adhered to the ideas expressed in the document addressed to the king were renowned initiators and supporters such as Metropolitan Pimen Georgescu, Nicolae Iorga or Petru Poni; local personalities such as N. A. Bogdan or Gh. Ghibănescu; priests, owners, masters, clerks, merchants, workers, university students, teachers, pensioners, etc, including politicians of almost all colours. The purpose of my research – besides the analysis of memo contents, even of the list of signatories – is to reconstruct the context of the document. Furthermore, I will also see how many of the hopes of the new beginning – expressed by the people of Iaşi through that gesture of great engagement – actually became reality in the two decades until the subsequent world conflagration.
prelucrăm, ne-am propus să prezentăm acum o perioadă mai dificilă din existenţa de 56 de ani a Orfelinatului „Procopie Florescu” de la Tăuteşti, judeţul Iaşi.
CONFLICTS AT THE “PROCOPIE FLORESCU” ORPHANAGE
IN TĂUTEŞTI (1892–1948)
Abstract
The study gives a detailed description of a troubled period in the existence of the “Procopie Florescu” Orphanage from Tăuteşti, Iaşi County, 1932–1935, against the background of the deprivation caused by the Great Crisis. The author analyzes the development of the conflict between the school staff and the director of the orphanage, how the involved parties appealed to the higher institutions, the investigations carried out and the outcome of the issue.
Based on new documents from the archives of Iasi, the author insisted on an arrangement that took place in December 1813 between Iordache Rosetti Roznovanu and Alexandru Panaite. They closed a fictitious act which stated that Alexandru Panaite had bought the estates that Roznovanu Iordache Rosetti had in Bessarabia, including Soroca.
The false exchange was accompanied by a secret document which stated that in reality Alexandru Panaite was appointed administrator of the estates of Roznovanu Iordache Rosetti from Basarabia. At the end of 1813, many boyar families have resorted to such fictitious exchanges and sales documents. The goal was to get around the provisions of the peace treaty from 1812 between Russia and the Ottoman Empire, which stated that nobles were forced to decide under whose power they would remain subjects and to give up their estates located on the sides of river Prut, the new border between the two empires.
In Paris, there is an organisation called The Association of Descendants of Gustave Eiffel, which keeps track of all the works executed by the Eiffel company; the association comprises the architect’s descendants and experts certifying the works ascribed to Eiffel. To commemorate the centenary of the architect’s death in 2023, Radio France International sent a reporter called Cristina Teacă to Romania to search and record Eiffel’s traces in this part of Europe, starting from the data provided by the association.
In Iaşi, the emissary of the French news agency came with a precise target: attesting to the existence of the railway bridge in Ungheni (it was the only work on which the Paris-based association had information that it would have been executed following the company’s plans).
Once she arrived, though, it became apparent that any Internet search for “Eiffel and Iaşi” provided at least four seemingly undeniable associations between the presence of the famous architect and the map of the Iaşi city and county.
In chronological order, they are as follows:
a. the wall and iron hall, i.e., the first market hall built in Iaşi in 1873;
b. the railway bridge from Ungheni (built in 1876);
c. Grand Hotel Traian, built on a metal structure in Union Square in 1880-1882;
d. Petre P. Carp’s mausoleum in Ţibăneşti (built in 1885).
Upon a more thorough analysis of the evidence, nuances emerge concerning all these landmarks, providing new leads. It proves there is no reliable evidence for ascribing the metal-structure buildings in Iaşi to Eiffel and his company. Ultimately, what people who claim that Eiffel designed those buildings in Iaşi neglected or omitted to state is that numerous architects and architectural companies designed exquisite metal structures for buildings during the second half of the 19th century, with Gustave Eiffel as the tip of the iceberg. The supreme evidence of the knowledge acquired by an entire generation of engineers and architects in functional architecture based on metal structure is the tower of the International Exhibition, which has become the emblem of the French capital.
They had to face the changes brought to the economic system at the continental level, manifested in space which, from the 17th to the late 18th century, was under the overwhelming influence of the Ottoman economic system. Among the challenges experienced by the merchants and artisans in a changing world, such as that of the first half of the 19th century, I mention the organisation into guilds, the supremacy of the western economy, the first attempts to constitute a free market, as well as competition and protectionism. Such transformations influence individual and mostly group attitudes, through the invocation of old privileges and traditions or the protection of the representatives of local power or foreign consulates. They also invoked, in a rather confused manner at first, but then increasingly more clearly, the value of free trade. The disturbance of the old order and the volatility of the new
one left traces in the files within various collections of the Archives in Iaşi; the study relies on these sources.
the virtue of Christian mercy. Therefore, the Church, regarded as a social organism and in order to meet the needs of the Christian divine service, has always been in need of earthly property for the support of its servants and to help those who needed its protection. “Support of the needy” has actually been the strongest justification for the acquisition of properties, as the protection of the poor, of the sick, of widows and of orphans has led the church towards the accomplishment of one of its primary goals. The Monastery Immaculate Mother of God in Roman is a religious foundation created in the mid-eighteenth century, during the rule of Prince Constantin Racoviță. Our research starts from the contents of an income and expense lists, a document was elaborated in the month of June 1785. It had two sections covering four pages. In the first and shorter section, incomes were written down, while the second one (more complicated) contained the expenditures.
This research represents a reconstruction of the urban evolution of a portion of the historical center of the city of Iasi, two lots located near the church known as the “White Church” (Biserica Albă), from the Fânăriei mahale. The first documents regarding these lots date from the middle of the 18th century. The analysis of the sources reveals that in the second half of the 18th century there were some wooden houses built on stone foundation, with basements underneath, destroyed by at least two devastating fires. After 1798 a house made of durable materials, stone and brick was built. That proved to be the place where, with some transformations and renovations, the Austrian Consulate in Iasi resides, from 1813 to 1833, then from 1846 to 1896. The interruption between 1833 and 1846 was due to a serious damage to the construction by another devastating fire, this time from 1833.
We managed to capture the existence of its building and its dependencies both in documents and in the plans of the town of Iasi drawn in the second half of the 18th century and in the following century. The building where the Austrian Consulate in Iasi worked was
demolished in 1989, following the implementation of a plan for the
systematization of the central area of Iasi.
This paper started from a personal curiosity concerning the beginnings of cycling in Iaşi and the identity of the protagonists for this new type of mobility in late 19th century and the first years of the 20th century. My aim was to point out the change of public perception, influenced even by
promoting bike riding by personalities of the time and I studied the administrative measures followed by the multiplication of bikes and cyclists in Iaşi.
The basis of the research is the content of a Memo of the people of Iaşi drafted up in the month of December 1918. The document is dated January 6, 1919, and it was created in order to be presented before King Ferdinand in Iaşi, on January 24, during his highly anticipated participation to the 60-year celebration of the Unification of Principalities.
The preamble of the document mentioned the sacrifices made by Iaşi and by Moldavia, both the recent ones – during the war – and those accumulated throughout the six decades from the constitution of the Romanian state. In the following lines, the wishes of people from Iaşi and of Moldavians in general were outlined. The text of the memo was accompanied by a list featuring several thousand signatures (as well as the full name of petitioners, their occupation and their address). Upon analyzing the list, I have concluded that the persons who adhered to the ideas expressed in the document addressed to the king were renowned initiators and supporters such as Metropolitan Pimen Georgescu, Nicolae Iorga or Petru Poni; local personalities such as N. A. Bogdan or Gh. Ghibănescu; priests, owners, masters, clerks, merchants, workers, university students, teachers, pensioners, etc, including politicians of almost all colours. The purpose of my research – besides the analysis of memo contents, even of the list of signatories – is to reconstruct the context of the document. Furthermore, I will also see how many of the hopes of the new beginning – expressed by the people of Iaşi through that gesture of great engagement – actually became reality in the two decades until the subsequent world conflagration.
prelucrăm, ne-am propus să prezentăm acum o perioadă mai dificilă din existenţa de 56 de ani a Orfelinatului „Procopie Florescu” de la Tăuteşti, judeţul Iaşi.
CONFLICTS AT THE “PROCOPIE FLORESCU” ORPHANAGE
IN TĂUTEŞTI (1892–1948)
Abstract
The study gives a detailed description of a troubled period in the existence of the “Procopie Florescu” Orphanage from Tăuteşti, Iaşi County, 1932–1935, against the background of the deprivation caused by the Great Crisis. The author analyzes the development of the conflict between the school staff and the director of the orphanage, how the involved parties appealed to the higher institutions, the investigations carried out and the outcome of the issue.
Based on new documents from the archives of Iasi, the author insisted on an arrangement that took place in December 1813 between Iordache Rosetti Roznovanu and Alexandru Panaite. They closed a fictitious act which stated that Alexandru Panaite had bought the estates that Roznovanu Iordache Rosetti had in Bessarabia, including Soroca.
The false exchange was accompanied by a secret document which stated that in reality Alexandru Panaite was appointed administrator of the estates of Roznovanu Iordache Rosetti from Basarabia. At the end of 1813, many boyar families have resorted to such fictitious exchanges and sales documents. The goal was to get around the provisions of the peace treaty from 1812 between Russia and the Ottoman Empire, which stated that nobles were forced to decide under whose power they would remain subjects and to give up their estates located on the sides of river Prut, the new border between the two empires.