Iaşi   The Cultural Capital of Moldova

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Moldova's Cultural Capital

Iaşi is the vibrant capital city of Iaşi County in north-eastern Romania, in the historic Moldova (or Moldavia) region in north-eastern Romania, bordering the Republic of Moldova, the Ukraine, and domestically, the Bucovina, Transilvania, and Wallachia regions, and just a tip of Dobrogea.

From 78,000 in 1900 to today's 315,000, Iaşi is the second largest city in Romania, after the capital Bucharest.  The city lies on the Bahlui river, a tributary of the Jijia (tributary of the Prut).

The surrounding country is one of uplands and woods, featuring the monasteries of Cetăţuia, Frumoasa, Galata (with nearby mineral springs), and the dendrologic park of Repedea. Iaşi itself stands amid vineyards and gardens, partly on two hills, partly in the in-between valley.

Iaşi is an outstanding educational centre, and preserves some beautiful pieces of architecture, such as the Trei Ierarhi Church and the neo-Gothic Palace of Culture (the site of four museums - of History, of Technology, of Ethnography, and of Art). Many buildings in the old city centre were demolished during the Communist regime, with a few Soviet-style blocks of flats built in their stead.

Churches

Iaşi is the seat of the Romanian Orthodox Church Metropolitan bishopric of Moldavia, and of a Roman Catholic bishopric. The city houses more than 40 churches. The oldest one is Saint Nicholas, dating from the reign of Stephen the Great (1457-1504); perhaps the finest, however, are the 17th century older metropolitan church, Saint Spiridion and Trei Ierarhi, the last a curious example of Byzantine art, erected in 1635-1639 by Vasile Lupu, and adorned with countless gilded carvings on its outer walls and twin towers. Other beautiful churches, some surrounded by big walls, are: Galata (1581), Golia, St. Sava, Barnovschi, Bărboi (17th century), Cetăţuia (the end of the 17th century) and Frumoasa (18th century).

A society of physicians and natural historians has existed in Iaşi since the early part of the 19th century, and a number of periodicals are published. One of the oldest medical universities in Romania, founded in 1879, is in Iaşi. It is now known as the "Grigore T. Popa" University of Medicine and Pharmacy.

The first Technical High Education structure in Romanian language was established in the autumn of 1813, when engineer Gheorghe Asachi laid the foundations of a class of engineers, its activities taking place within the Greek Academy of Iaşi.

After 1813, other moments marked the development of higher education in Romanian, regarding both humanities and the technical science. In 1835, Academia Mihăileană was founded in Iaşi by Prince Mihail Sturdza.

Iaşi is home to the oldest Romanian university (University of Iaşi), opened by (and nowadays named after) Domnitor Alexandru Ioan Cuza in 1860. The city is host to five universities, and is widely regarded as the cultural "heart" of the Old Kingdom (that is Moldavia, Wallachia, and Dobruja - the three regions comprising Romania until 1918).

In 1937, the two applied science sections of the university of Iaşi became departments of the newly created Gheorghe Asachi Polytechnic School; In the period before and after World War II, the later (renamed Polytechnic Institute in 1948) extended its domain of activity, especially in the field of engineering, and became adopted a Technical University in 1993.

Besides the universities, there are schools of art and music; the university library, where the chief records of Romanian history are preserved; a chamber of commerce, and several banks.

The city is the headquarters of the 10th army corps. It has an active trade in metals, medical drugs (antibiotics), wine, preserved meat, textiles and clothing.

Eminescu's Iaşi

Famed poet and national hero Mihai Eminescu worked in Iaşi from 1874 to 1877 as the Central Library Director, as well as a teacher and school inspector for the counties of Iaşi and nearby County Vaslui to the south.   See more in our Literature section

 Eminescu was the Iaşi Courier newspaper editor, owing largely to his friendship with Titu Maiorescu, the leader of the Junimea Society, and rector of the University of Iaşi.  He continued to publish in Convorbiri literare. He became a good friend of Ion Creangă, whom he convinced to become a writer and introduced to the Junimea literary club. 

From Mike Ormsby's new must-read book 'NEVER MIND THE BALKANS, HERE'S ROMANIA!', with a laconic English perspective on life in Romania and the Romanian people Read More Here

A Treasure in English

Someone taps my arm, a delicate touch like a butterfly.  I turn and find a young lady offering me a book.  It's old and yellow with dog-eared corners and a familiar face printed on the front: Mihai Eminescu, the national romantic poet with rock-star looks.  

"In English, buried in our cupboard!"  Says the librarian, with a perfect smile.  I thanked her and open the book.   The poems are lyrical, dreamy and evocative.   

For a translation, the language has an authentic fluidity, the meter rises and falls just at the right time, the rhymes are not forced. 

Eminescu had a good translator for this collection.  I turn back the pages keen to find out who.   A youthful face gazes up from the fly leaf.  The young man looks about 18 years old.  His features are symmetrical and very Romanian: a strong nose, firm jaw and dark eyes -- intense but mischievous.

The young man's name is Corneliu M. Popescu.  I get the feeling he is a clever kid.  But did he really translate all these beloved poems?  There are dozens.  I'm intrigued, now.

-- from the tale "Buried"

 

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==HISTORY===================================

Early Iaşi History

Around 1564, Prince Alexandru Lăpuşneanu moved the Moldavian capital from Suceava to Iaşi. Between 1561 and 1563, a school and a Lutheran church were founded by the Greek adventurer Prince, Ioan Iacob Heraclid.

In 1640, Vasile Lupu established the first school in which the mother-tongue replaced Greek, and set up a printing press in the Byzantine Trei Ierarhi Church (Church of the Three Hierarchs; built 1635–39). In 1643, the first volume ever printed in Moldavia was issued in Iaşi.

The city was burned down by the Tatars in 1513, by the Ottomans in 1538, by the Imperial Russian troops in 1686. In 1734, it was hit by the plague.

Through the Peace of Iaşi, the sixth Russo-Turkish War was brought to a close in 1792. A Greek revolutionary maneuver and occupation under Alexander Ypsilanti and the Filiki Eteria (1821, at the beginning of the Greek War of Independence) led to the storming of the city by the Turks in 1822. In 1844 there was a severe conflagration.

Jassy Old Iaşi Scholars have different theories on the origin of the name "Iaşi".  Some argue that the name originates with the Sarmatian tribe Iazyges, one mentioned by Ovid as "Ipse vides onerata ferox ut ducata Iasyx/ Per media Istri plaustra bubulcus aquas" and "Jazyges et Colchi Metereaque turba Getaque/ Danubii mediis vix prohibentur aquis". A nowadays lost inscription on a Roman milestone found near Osijek, Croatia by Matija Petar Katancic in the 18th century, mentions the existence of a Jassiorum municipium. Another explanation is that the name originated from the Alanic tribe of Jassi.  The Hungarian name of the city (Jászvásár) literally means "Jassic Market"; the antiquated Romanian name, Târgul Ieşilor (and the once-favoured Iaşii form), may indicate the same meaning. The city is first mentioned in a 1408 document by Moldavian Prince (Voivode) Alexandru cel Bun. However, as buildings older than 1408 existed and still exist (for example the Armenian Church built in 1395), it is believed that the city existed long before its first mentioning.

The Great Synagogue of Iaşi Built in the early 1670s, it's a uniquely Romanian take on the traditional temple design

Between 1565 and 1859, the city was the capital of Moldavia; then, between 1859 and 1862, both Iaşi and Bucharest were de-facto capitals of the United Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia (the Danubian Principalities).

In 1862, when the union of the two principalities was recognized under the name of Romania, the national capital was established in Bucharest. For the loss caused to the city in 1861 by the removal of the seat of government to Bucharest the constituent assembly voted 148,150 lei to be paid in ten annual instalments, but no payment was ever made.

Iaşi's primitive houses of timber and plaster were mostly swept away after 1860, when brick or stone came into general use, and better streets were cut through the network of narrow, unsanitary lanes.

Modern Iaşi

During World War I, Iaşi was the capital of a severely reduced Romania for two years, following the Central Powers' occupation of Bucharest on December 6, 1916.

 The capital was returned to Bucharest after the defeat of Imperial Germany and its allies in November 1918.

In May 1944, Iaşi became the scene of ferocious fighting between Romanian-Nazi German forces and the advancing Soviet Red Army. The elite German Panzergrenadier Division Großdeutschland won an impressive defensive victory at the Battle of Târgul Frumos, a location near Iaşi. The battle was the object of several NATO studies during the Cold War. By July, Iaşi had been taken by Soviet forces.

Iaşi also figures prominently in Jewish history. Records of Jews exist from the 16th century, and by mid-19th century, owing to widespread Russian Jewish and Galician Jewish immigration into Moldavia, the city was at least one-third Jewish.

In 1855, it was the home of the first-ever Yiddish-language newspaper, Korot Haitim, and, in 1876, the site of what was arguably the first-ever professional Yiddish theatre performance

By 1930 there were over 30,000 Jews and over 127 synagogues. After World War II, it played a prominent part in the revival of Yiddish culture in Romania: from 1949 to 1964, Iaşi was home to a second company of the State Jewish Theatre.

Today, Iaşi has a dwindling Jewish population of ca. 300 to 600 members, and one working synagogue which dates from the 1600s. There is also a Jewish community centre serving kosher meals from a small cantina.

Outside of the city on top of a hill there is a large Jewish Cemetery which has graves dating from the late 1800s; burial records date from 1915 to the present day and are kept in the community centre.
 

The Iaşi Pogrom

During the early part of World War II, Iaşi was the site of a pogrom which was the largest massacre of Jews in Romania. During the war, while the full scale of the Holocaust remained generally unknown to the Allied Powers, the Iaşi pogrom stood as one of the known, well-documented examples of Axis brutality toward the Jews.

The pogrom lasted from June 29–July 6, 1941, and approximately 14,000 people, or half the Jewish population, was massacred either in the pogrom itself (around 2,000 Jews), or in its aftermath (around 12,000 Jews), and the rest were deported. Under express orders from military dictator and German ally Ion Antonescu, the city was to be "cleansed" of its Jewish population.

Orders also specified that Section Two of the General Headquarters of the Romanian army and the Special Intelligence Service (SSI) of Romania were to spread rumours of Jewish treachery in the press, including ones that Jews were guiding Soviet military aircraft by placing lights in their houses' chimneys.

A systematic massacre by the Iaşi police, Romanian and German soldiers, and a portion of the citizens of Iaşi followed; the remaining Jewish population was loaded onto overcrowded, sealed "death trains" that drove slowly back and forth across the country until most of their passengers were killed by hyperthermia, thirst, or infection and bleeding.

Six non-Jewish citizens of Iaşi are credited with saving around one hundred Jews, but, according to the official Romanian report on the subject, the vast majority of the population of the city did nothing to intervene, and a certain portion joined in the killing.