Title: ³Bucharest Up Until the Mid of Our Century as It Used to Be and Never Will Again´ Author: Adrian Cioroianu
How to cite this article: Cioroianu, Adrian. 2000. ȃBucharest Up Until the Mid of Our Century as It Used to Be and
Never Will Again.Ȅ Martor 5: 11-26. Published by: Editura MARTOR (MARTOR Publishing House), £ȱo©ȱ¦ (The
Museum of the Romanian Peasant)
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Martor is indexed by EBSCO and CEEOL. Bucharest Up Until the Mid of Our Centm·y Photo: co ll . Artexpo as It Used to Be and Never Will Again Adrian Cioroianu Faculty of Histo1 y, University of Bucharest
My acqu aintance with the city of Bucharest vault, everybody read ily comforted me, in a pity- was rather tardy and when it finally happened, i ng ton e: your headache is only natural, my first impression was alread y shaped by what Bucharest is an infernal city, and to live th ere is l knew, more or less accurately, about its history a killer. (The truth actually lied elsewh ere, and from my readings. Proportions preserved, I was now J can tell it: at th e clo se of my stay in a sort of Tarzan, knowin g how to read, yet un- Bucharest I had had two pints of beer and three able to speah·, th e lan guage of th e to wn. I kn ew rancid meat balls (mititei) in a small bar by th e from my readings that the Romanian Liberal University building, on the lzvor Bridge, and Party had been born in one of th e houses on then I had rushed to th e railway station. That is Enei Street, around 1875. I knew that Tudor the true story of my heada che.) Vladimirescu, the revolutionist of th e early nin e- On ce settled in Bucharest, with a student's re- teenth ce ntury, had se ttled hi s camp at Co- sid ence visa, I was now fa ced with a city gone mad troceni , wh ich at that time was on the outskirts with the passion of tran sformation s. In fact, it was of th e city, in March 1821. I also knew a few not th e city that had gon e mad, but a petty frown- things about the hopeless, yet chivalri c, struggle ing fellow I once or twi ce saw on Splaiul lndepen- of th e firefighters on Dealul Spirii against the while he was giving direction s on what th e Turks who invaded th e cit-y in September 1848. new created Museum of the Communist Party His- However, I would have had a hard tim e in trying t01y shoLJd look like. Th ey started rai sing it on the to say whi ch was where. left bank of the Dirnbovita river, and th e building For years on end , Bu charest had meant to still awa its completion , although in the meantime me th e North Station, which I knew only as a it became the Radio House. That fellow was, ob- stop on my way to oth er diverse destinations. viously, Ni colae To my wond er, I only After my first actual sta y in Bucharest, wh en l ran into processions on Saturdays. applied for th e University toward s th e end of th e That is probably on e of the reason s wh y the suc- '80 s, I took th e way home with a splitting cessors of th e above-m entioned lead er hastened to headache. l even wond ered why, around 1761 , declare, in the afterm ath of December 1989, that th e Ban 1 of Olteni a ca me to Bucharest, leaving Saturday should be a holiday. Thus it should have som ebod y else in Craio va to rul e over his coun- become less likely for the citizen of Bucharest to ty. Ba ck home, und er th e utterly patriarchal vin e run unawares into th e chi ef of the state.
Marlor, V - 2000, Bucharest in conununjst times: resistance, normality, survival 12 Adrian Cioroianu
The centre that is not central must have been clearer during the Paleolithic age than they are today). Main occupations in- What strikes one who takes a look at the map cluded hunting, fi shing and breeding and, pro- of contemporary Romania is its total asymmetry: bably, given the surrounding forests and the the ca pital, that is to say the political, cultural abundant vegetation, bee-keeping too, as was the and economic center of the co untry is way too case everywhere along the left bank of the removed from the geographical center of the na- Danube. Time passing by, crafts and commerce tional territory. Of course, the notion of the ca- became, as we shall see, prominent, since pital as center is a pure convention; few are the Bucharest was situated on one of the trading states whose capitals lie at the very heart of the roads that connected the Ottoman Empire to the national territory. However, Bucharest seems to Western world, passing through and be thrust in Southern Romania, to the effect that other Transylva nian citi es. The contemporary its vicinity to the 45° North latitude parallel2 (i. e. Romanian attempt to foreground the co untry as half way between the Equator and the North one stop along the wondrous trajectory of East- Pole) is a mere surrogate. The distance between ern oil towards the Western car-reservoires has, the capital and the north-westernmost and north- as one can easily see, a consid erable tradition. eastern most cities of Romania is, in a straight Historians have also di scovered traces of line, longe r than that between Bucharest and habitation in the Dacian period, during the last Sophia (the capital of Bulgaria) or the frontiers ce nturies B.C. The sites of of Greece and Turkey. However, one should Novaci or Crasani etc. are still there in the ar- note that Bucharest is un-centered only with re- chaeologists' academic reports and in the night- gard to contemporary Romania; centuries ago, it mares of high-school students who prepare their was relatively central to the region of medieval graduation exams. Wallachia. A noteworthy detail are the treasures disco- Those who claim that Bucharest is a 'Balkan vered this century on the site of the city: in city' disregard these elements of topometrics. 1931, at Fundeni, urns copied after Greek origi- During my university years I wa s in friendly nals were dug up; in 1938, nea r Herastrau, jew- polemics with a fellow student from Cluj, and, in ellery and silver coins from the 2 11 d century B.C. an attempt to put an end to a di scussion that left copied after Greek tetradrachmas were found; him no honourable means to take the upper the same holds true for subsequ ent di scoveries hand, he told me, I know your sort, you South- of treasures in Colentina, Bragadiru or erners! My first intention was to argue that I was Leordeni - all copies of Greek coins from the 4th a Bucharest man only as a student, that my or 3rc1 centuries B.C. or of Roman coins. Those hometown was Craiova, but then I realised that who marvel today at the wealth of Exchange Of- his rebuff covered that area as well. fi ces on the boulevards of Bucharest will under- stand now that their ancestors were as cosmo- politan as they are in point of financial passion; Waters, coins and oak-trees one could even argue that the fake dollars to be Let us leave meta-hist01y behind and come found on today's market are themselves part of back to history as such: according to available some kind of tradition. data, contemporary Bucharest and its surround- The Bucharest area was also inhabited in the ings have been inhabited from times immemo- first centuries A.D., even iJ evid ence of impor- rial. That should come as no surprise, since the tant habitats is not attested; as was the case with place has always been drenched by two water- the whole Romanian territory, Bucharest proto- co urses, Dimbovita and Colentina (although they inhabitants pulled through after the centuries of Bucharest Up Until the Mid of Our Century 13 migration, enriching their genetic endowment davia and even Transylvania. It is not likely that yet preserving ascendance thanks to their Latin their relation is co incidental, but it is indeed origin. Cohabitation with th e Slavs res ulted in likely that all are generated by a founding Bucur several Slavic etymons, for instance the name of whom many recognized as their ancestor. On the the river Dimbovita, which is probably a re- other hand, we know that the status of a capital minder of the river-side landscape, one covered was granted to the city of Bucharest only at a by thick oak forests that surrounded the whole later date. Its first documentary mention is 1 city (d'imb - Slavic for oak), while the name of September 20 " 1459, under the form of a legal the river Ialomita comes from ialov (Slavic for act in the time of Vlad (Vlad the Impaler, deserted area), as it ran across an area of untilled prince between 1456 and 1462 and for a shorter land. However, stri ctly Romanian toponyms out- while in 14 76, a figure mainly known abroad as number these influences; most of them end in the prototype of blood-thirsty Dracula). At that -eni or a clear reference to names of land- time, the Principality had as its center the city of own ers or rulers of the epoch, which co uld ulti- and, before that, the city of Curtea de mately indica te that the Romanians have had However, Vlad spent most of the time in from the ve ry beginning an acute sense of Bucharest (where, according to some historians, ownership. his grandfather, Mircea eel Batrin - Mircea the As an example, we could take the very name Old, ruler between 1386 and 1418, had built a of the capital, Bucurqti. There is a legendary princely residence), so as to keep an eye on the aura to its moment of foundation, which has al- banks of the Danube and watch th e way on ways been well received, all the more so as the which the Ottoman troops used to come and in- strictly documentary mention of the city comes vade the country. rather late. The legend has it that the name of During the 15lh and 16 111 centuries, there was the city comes from a certain Bucur who lived in still competition between the citi es of Bucharest the whereabouts and was either a wealthy shep- and for the status of resid ence of the herd or an influent merchant and landowner. Princely Court, but due to a more pronounced Others believe that the foundation of the city is dynamism, the future belonged to the former. In coeval with the foundation of the Romanian 14 76, Mathias Co rvin, the Magya r prince, Principality or Wallachia - which, in its legen- described Bucharest as the most powerful citadel dary version , is due to the equally legendary of the Romanian Principality in a letter ad- Negru Voda (The Black Prince), whose actual dressed to Pope Sixtus the Fourth. Fifty and historical existence is quite in substantial. At any more years later, another mler of the Romanian rate, chronicles of the latter half of the 141h cen- Principality, another Vlad, confirms the state- tury gloss tl1 e existence of a 'city of Dimbovita' - ment made by Mathias indirectly and unawares. a possible early settlement in the area now called In 15 32, after a two-year reign (and after an Bucharest. epoch-making banquet, or so the story goes), he drowned while trying to cross Dimbovita on horse-back (hence his historical cognomen, Vlad More legends than there are documents lnecatul - Vlad the Drowned One). This unfor- All mentions made so far remain however tunate event also certifies to the quality of Ro- under the all-reaching spell of legends. On the manian wines and to the vicinity of Bucharest to one hand, it should be made clear that the name renowned vin e ya rds of the country. The tradi- of is by no means unique as reference tion of the Romanian ruling elites' passion for in early Romanian toponimy, as there are other wine-drinking neither begins nor ends with the sites known under the name in Wallachia, Mol- tragic fate of Vlad the Drowned One: for many 14 Adrian Cioroianu medieval rulers of the country, even for th e most teresting morale: th e city alread y manifes ted a outstanding on es, wine wa s at least as praised as remarkable dynamism tightly related to its re- nectar wa s among th e god s in Olympus. generating for ce. AU evidence points to the fact The first prince to be concern ed with city th at after all the looting and se tting on fire, planning avant-la-lettre wa s Mircea Ciobanul hou ses and shops were restored in no tim e. It (Mircea th e Shepherd, 1545-1554). During hi s was more diffi cult to do th e sam e with churches, reign, th e city boundaries grow more clearl y de- because funds were not that easily rai sed in this fined, by oaken walls; within th e city, properties case . Even if, generally speaking, Buchares t and terrains are also delimited by ston e marks. dwellers were in awe of God and in th e habit of Thi s prince wa s also an advocate of Orthodoxy, church-going, they were also practi sing, without being th e founder of the Church of the ancient even knowing it, the philosophy of liberalism. Princely Court, among others. However, th e re- A quite benefic and prosperou s period wa s ligious fe rvour did not spare him th e mi sfortun e the reign of Matei Basarab, around th e middle of of being disavowed by the Turks in 1554, for the l ?tli century (1632-1654). The two decad es reasons that remain unclear. Afterward s, th e of this reign consisted in a change for th e better Ottoman army that entered the city murdered all in the way the city looked, even if the prin ce th e courtiers, looted the city and set it on fire. As spent but the first half of his reign in Bucharest we will see, such events were not rare during the (and eventually withdrew to Th e ensuing century. Princely Court is redone and bridges (actu aUy Bucharest is also stricly related to the reign large wooden plancks) are set on road s and mar- of Mihai Vitea zul (Mihai th e Brave, 1593-1601), ketplaces, as an elementary measure aga in st th e ex-Ban of Oltenia , who will live to be th e first rainfalls and the overflowing of Dimbovita (in- prince who achieved national unity. Mihai pre- con veniences that seem to be also part of a tra- ferred to res ide in and that for a dition , even if Dimbovita is no longer a real cau se: in 1overnb er 1594 he se nd s for Turk threat). Let us also remember that, con sid ering creditors at the Bucharest treasury to acquit hi s all past and fu ture p-iH·cs, Matei Basarab wa s debts and he murders them one by on e - we also thf' great'' ' r 11 urch-founder and no matter have to agree, it is quit: an efficient, if radi cal, how hard tried to demolish manner to settle one's accounts. th e traces of such heritage centuries later, he Th ereon, hi s relations to the Ottoman empire simply could not be entirely successful becom e rather tense, and Bucharest bears the costs at their hardest. In the summer of 1595, Great fires and beautiful girls though vi ctor over the Turks at Calugareni (South of Bucharest), Mihai is contrived to re- To the extent that recapturing it is possible, treat in the Carpathians, while Sinan Pasha, th e the life of Bucharest dwellers of th e epoch had lea der of the Turks, takes Bucharest over. Th e its charm. The city wa s surrounded by wood s first measure taken by the Turks is to fortify th e and the banks of the rivers were splendid, in citad el and prepare for a lengthy stay. Mihai , spring as well as in autumn. Hunting in th e near- with support from the army troops of Sigismund by forests and angling in rivers and ponds were Bathory (prince of Transylvania), recuperates the accessible almost to everyone. Dimbovita wa s th e city, but the Turks set it on fire before leaving it. chief course of household and drinking water No sooner had households been rebuilt than, in and it continued to be so for quite a whil e, even the fall of 1596, the Tartars un expectedly strike when means of filtering and treating it (in an as well and Bucharest is set on fire. From a hi s- early stage with alum) were developed in tim e (it tori cal perspective, these tragedies have an in- is not clear, though, if the quality of drinking Bucharest Up Until the Mid of Our Century 15 water wa s improved). Traditionally, spring in the Turks and Tartars set the city on fire. How- Bucharest is short, while autumn la sts longer. ever, the dwellers rebuild th eir small, one-sto- Winters were and remain cold and harsh, while ri ed, but vigorous houses within the sa me year. ' summers were hot and droughty. The winter star As this description has it, the city had then about has always been the Criviif (a North-West wind), 12,000 houses (i.e. 50-60 thousand inhabitants), while the one cherished by Bucharest dwellers is about one thousand shops (kept by 'beautiful the Baltaret (a South-East, rain-bringing wind). girls', says the Turk traveler), each of them fur- ln the summer drought the ponds run dry and ni shed with a wine cellar, and about seven inns ga ve off a quite unpleasant odour and the for the travelers. One thing is certain: nowadays swarms of mosquitos were a familiar presence. th e number of inns has increased (and they are The successor of Matei Basarab, Constantin known unde r different names), and the same (16 54-165 8), continued the tradition of goes for houses and shops. Wines are no longer founding churches and on e of the monasteries as sought for as they used to be, but what re- he had built became in 1661 Metropolitan Seat. mains the sam e, judging by the appearances, is Co nstantin Serban inherited another, less fortu- the attraction of Turk visitors for the just as nate tradition, too : in 1658 he wa s called to Con- beautiful girls of the city. stantinople and guessing what was to become of him there, he withdrew in Transylvania, while Between the dagger and 'Caragea's bladder' his arriere-gard e troops set the city on fire, so that the Turks should have nothing left to loot. After going through great fires, famine and Co nse quently, his successor to th e seat of the pest, Bucharest enjoyed a fe w decad es of re- Homanian Principality, Mihnea lll, prefe rred to gained peace and prosperity under the reigns of resid e in Tirgovi$te. Only a few years later, the Cantacuzino (1678-1688) and Constantin city of Tirgovi$te will be set on fire too, only this Brancoveanu (1688-171 4). Signs of modernity time by Turks and Tartars alike, and that was evolve in the most diverse forms: at the printing the last time it served as capital. Howeve r, a sort press of the first printing center of the city (set- of nostalgia fo r T!rgovi$te as voyvodal city lived tled in 1678 at the Metropolitan Seat) the splen- o n - even the co mmunist voyvod did 1688 Bible of Bu charest is published. The toyed with the id ea of transferring the cap ital to number of schools increases due to Bran co- Tirgovi$te, while Bucharest would remain the veanu's dilligen ce (for instance the St. Sava economic-industrial cente r. As is probably school or the school near the Coltea church , known, T1rgovi$te was not only one 0£ Ceau- which wa s inaugurated almost simultaneously $escu's fantasies, but also featured as a dramatic with the homonymous hospital). In 1692, the epi sode of his real life - of his last living hours, Bridge, which was to become the to be exact; but that is another story. main road of the city, is covered with oak tree Set on fire in 1658, struck by drought and, as beams. Brancoveanu also redecorates the Prince- a result, by famine in 1660 and almost simulta- ly Court, without sparing a cent, using by and neou sly by the pest, Bucharest wa s therefore large stone and marble. 1702 sees the comple- once more on th e brink of total di saste r; and tion of the Mogo$oaia Palace, meant as a gift to once more its regeneration force proved strong- the second of his four children, and er. Here is what Evlia Celebi , a Turk traveler, nowadays a touristic attraction 0£ the area. With wrote around 1666: 'The houses ( ... ), built of a population of 50 thousand inhabitants, Bu- stone or brick( .. .) are not numerous and seem to charest was, according to data, the most impor- be born under a bad omen, for every seven or tant city of South-Eastern Europe in the epoch. eight years their owners start another uproar and As had been the case before with his predeces- 16 Adrian Cioroianu so rs, Brancoveanu's pass ion for church-founding the population of the city mounted to around did not change his worldly destiny: on the 15'" eighty thousand inhabitants. 1icolae Caragea, of August 1714, he is beheaded by the Turks in Ipsil anti's successor, wa s not as propitious to hi s Constantinople, togeth er with hi s four sons. contemporaries. On th e one hand, be lev ied Afterwards, Bucharest, the undisputed eco- taxes (and he established thus a tradition) and nomic and political center of th e country, enters on the other, the pest epid emic visited the city th e century of Phanariot domination - a century again. And such di sasters will swarm in during that is so heterogenous in point of personalities th e ensuing decade (Ion Caragea's pest in and achievements that a complete anlysis of it is 1813-1814, with seventy thousand dead all over still to be done. The first decades are, once the country; famin e in 1795; another ea rth- more, dramatic: in February 1718 the city faUs quake in 1802; another great fire in 1804; and prey to a great fire; immediately after, a much the overflowing of Dirnbovita in 1805), while the too draughty summer results in famine, while war was going on between the Turks and the the Turkish armies bring in the pest, as they had Russians. The city and its dwellers clang on to done before. A cynical observer co uld say that life, again, and some of the residents of the 93 the epidemic was a democratic one, since loan mahala3 streets inventori ed in 1798 would even Mavrocordat, the prince himself, perished be- find life charming. In 1ovember 1789, under ca use of it. Heavenly gra ce, invoked at monas- the conditions of the Russian - Austrian - Turi - teri es inaugurations (a s, for instance, that of the ish war, Bucharest is besieged by Austrian army Monastery, founded by Nicolae Mavro- forces, under the lead of the prince of Coburg. cordat, father of loan), did not show its fa ce. In Several fancy balls followed, which the local bo- 1737, under the reign of Constantin Mavroco r- yars started to enjoy more and more, even if the dat, the city was set on fire first by the Turks and sartorial differences between them and the Aus- then by the Tartars. A pest epidemic, caused trian officers still spoke of the East-West scision. aga in by the Turks, left behind approximately In the summer of 1818, the mahala inhabitants ten thousand dead, whil e in 1738 a vi olent earth- were astonished to witness the first balloon to quake shook the foundations of the city. As if all take off from the city ground; to them, the bal- that had not sufficed, in summer-time a locust loon bore a striking resemblance to the pig blad- invasion brought about the familiar spectre of ders that children would gonflate at Christmas th e famine. A decade or so later, in 1756, a new time. That is why the balloon came to be histo- pest epidemic settled in and in 1769 Turkish rically known as 'Caragea' s bladder'. troops coming from the Danube area (in the con- text of the Turkish and Russian wars of the Revolutions and city engineering epoch) looted the city and set it on fire. However, Buch arest dwellers (or part of Bucharest had shyly entered the l 9th ce ntu- them) survived through all these events. The ry, without knowing that it had set for a time of Phanariot prince Alexandru Ipsilanti (1774- rapid and all-encompassing changes, just like the 1782) proved to be more dilligent than any of entire country. hi s predecessors in his co ncern to reorganise the The revolutionary decades followed. In the city: not only did he build a new Princely Court, times of Tudor Vladimirescu, Bucharest was the but a new delimitation of the city was thought of. starting-point and somewhat later the apogee of Also, channels were built to mitigate the over- the social movement led by Vladimirescu. To- flows of Dimbovita and several drinking water wards the close of his misadventure, he set off to springs were channeled into the city. According where be wa s murdered by his for- to some sources, towards the close of his reign, mer companions. Nowadays there still are peo ple Bucharest Up ntil the Mid of Our Century 17 wh o obstinately see a certain simili tud e between Kisseleff's dreams promptly beco me real: the hi s death and the last li vin g days of Nicolae city perim eter is set at 19 kilom eters, while en- who also se t off fo r in trance to and exit out of the city are poss ible sea rch of aid and was murdered th ere by some of through one of th e 10 military outposts. For the hi s fo rmer co mpanions. Anyway, co ming back to first tim e, streets are given names and hou ses Tu do r's dea th , Bucharest was immediately after are numbered systematically, the city center is co nqu ered by th e Turks. Inhabitants and pas- paved in stone and a boulevard connecting the se rs-by co uld then see on th e Bridge Bridge and Baneasa (No rth of Bu- one of the most dramatic episodes of that revo- charest) is designed in 1832. In 1831 and after, lutionary movement, i.e. the murdering of Sava a population census is completed; acco rding to the mili ta ry lea der of the Eteria. 1831 statistics, Bucharest had about seventy Th ereafter, Bu charest will ex peri ence at least thousand inhabitants, out of whi ch 58 th ousand fi ve more revolutions, so called by co ntemporary permanent and 10 to 12 thousa od temporary, regim es, bu t it had not ye t experi enced a velvet whi ch testifies to a remarkable dynamics of po- rernlu lion. pulation (to be compared wi th So phi a and The 1821 Revolution put and end to Pha- Athens, whi ch had merely 20 th ousa nd inhabi- na ri ot domination and was followed by the reign tants each). o[ Grigore Ghica, who was also concern ed with In April 1829, du e to the effo rts of the local emb elli shing the city: th e wooden bridges are intell ectual elite, the National Courier peri odical co nsolid ated, there are signs of stone-paving and appea rs, to which the lo cal authoriti es add, in city li ghts become a reality, at least fo r th e center 1832, th e Official Monitor, another influential of th e city. A new Russian and Turkish war cau- periodical; a noteworthy success is reported by ses th e Tzari st armi es to enter th e Romanian th e Wa lbawn bookshop, so well-furni shed witl1 Prin cip ality and adva nce to Bu charest in May books that Russ ian officers would purchase here 1828. That autumn, two terrify in g epid emi cs, boo l s fo rbidden in Tzarist Ru ss ia. In the early the pest and the cholera. co ncurrently strike 1830s, the Natio nal Archives are raised, taking Bucha rest again. But the peri od is not totally un- over fro m th e Metropolitan Seat the task of keep- fo rtunate: one of th e figures that is of definite in g ancient acts and documents. Late r on, to- hi stori cal importance to the city at the time is wa rd s the close of th e century, more exactly in the Russian general Pavel Kisseleff, governor of 1882, the impressive building of the Official Moldavia and of the Rom ani an Principality be- Mo nitor (later to become the locale of th e Na- twee n Nove mb er 1829 and April 1834. To tional Archives) is positioned opposite to th e Bu charest, Ki sseleffs presence was provid ential. Ga rden. Only a few months after his setting in Bucharest, Due to th ese cosmopolitan imports and to an he ord ered an 8-m ember co mmi ss ion fo r 'em- obvious urge to change as well, Bu charest ini- belli shing the city·, two of them being, not at all tiates an accelerated process of westernization b. acc id ent. doctors. Ki sseleff's projects we re that is noticea ble in term s of fashi on, mores, and ambi tious - the mapping of the city, the creation even the sound of the streets, where all Eastern of large boulevard s with shadowy trees on each European languages could be hea rd (it is true, side, th e draining of pond s th at ca used the howeve r, that the mo st refin ed would hear swarms of mosquitos, street lights and even the French exclusively). The attraction of the city building of a theater house. A Co mmittee of the was still represented by the dazzling coexistence City was fo rmed, its membe rs being elected by of wind swept shacks and always more impressive the wealthy citizens. The fi rst Peopl e's Council and daring palaces. of the City was to be elected in November 1831. Und er the reign of Gheo rghe Bibescu, the 18 Adrian Cioroianu raising of a National Theater began in 1846, su- was once again a revolutionary stage due to th e pervised by Austrian architect Hefft. Inaugurated enthousiastic 1848 revolutionists. A new genera- on New Year's Eve in 1852, with the participati on tion, more Europeanly-minded th an all fo rm er of Barbu Stirbey, the prince at the time, the Na- generation s, was about to take ove r. The Roma- tional Theater was the third largest theater house nian Infant, as C.A. Ro se tti's periodi cal was of Europe; its destruction caused by the Ge rman called, iss ued in th e summer and au tumn of bombing after August 23r
P uk e resl. cj,;.''Sc·hcs j}a11platz . qrcf.J: Villa. J(irche. kle1ncr
Photos: coll. N. lli escu & D. .\ ft ali on
}Jucuresci .....,..,,,.a ..A.1__ 20 Adrian Cioroianu
petroleum for lamp-posts (Vienna would resort to didn't lead to any clear changes or results. the same method as late as 1859). Thereon, gas The 1860's are a good tim e for education, it- is introduced in 1868, while in 1882, the first self modernized as the Zeitgeist demanded: in fe w electric bulbs made their appearance in the cityscape, highschools such as ' Gh eorghe Bucharest, lighting the fa <,; ad e of the Roya l Lazar' or 'Matei Basa rab' become notable land- Palace. Starting with 1855, anyo ne could send a marks, and from 1865 on, 'Mihai Viteazul' is as wire at will and after 1890 th e well-to-do could notorious. From their earliest days, highschool even communicate by telephone. students added some colour to the streets of th e The 1860 population census speaks of a city city, even if their uniform were rather sombre- with more than 120 thousand inhabitants, one coloured. It was bon ton to be seen as a student sixth of which were merchants. The city totaled carrying around a pack of books from one of the 2000 wooden houses, some 5 thousand earth city's bookshops, be it Hachette, Socec or others; buildings and already over 16 thousand brick without a uniform, a student could also be seen houses. Also in 1860, street paving was given a on less respectable streets, or in public houses, start, a sign of modernity that pleased the lovers but people were generally tolerant and would of carriage strolls (or coach strolls for those who turn a blind eye on such off-track behavior that had a sense of nostalgia) - thus they would be went with the young age. The summer of 1865 safe from mingling too closely with 'all those welcomes the presence of the majesti c building merchants' in the tram-and-horses that appeared of the University, and the more and more acti ve in a quite impressive number after 1871. Some- involvement of the teachers, professors and what later, in 1894, a new company, later known intellectuals in the cultural life of th e time will as BTC (Rom,, STB), The Bucharest Tramway lead to the establishment, in 1866, of the Lite- Company, will introduce electric tramways, with- rmy Society - the future Romanian Academy out eliminating the former type or the carriages. (starting 1878). The habitual destination of a respectable Bu- In 1864, the ancient City Council will be re- charest dweller was the center, or one of the pu- placed by the Municipality Hall (following the blic gardens. Or the 'bulivar", since the city wa s example of important European capitals); there- never in need of provincial master Goe'sS, com- after, the mayor will be a key character in urban ing to visit the capital. After 1872, one of the life and the truth is that there were some re- frequent destinations was the station markable mayors towards the close of the centu- (called, from 1888 on, 'the North Station', a la ry, without whose determination the planning of parisienne). The first station had been Filaret, major roads (going from East to West and from where in 1869 the first railroad was festively North to South, after 1890) would probably have inaugurated; pomposity was not discouraged by been delayed. Mayor Pache Protopopescu wa s the pettiness of the railroad, which merely con- one of the keenest in these matters. nected the capital to Giurgiu (60 km). But it Wh en on May 1Qth 1866, Carol I, the future didn't matter, the first step had been taken and king, arrived in Bucharest, Romania had offi- that made all the difference. Railroad expansion cially adopted the International Standardization would later on engender several important co r- System for two years (so to say , people were ruption scandals. We co uld say that, in the re- growing accustomed to the meter, the Zil er, the cent history of Bucharest, these political-fashio- kilogram). Of course, old standard units were nable scandals got themselves noticed just as the still in use in markets, as were unbalanced great fires, the pest and the Turkish invasions scales, never turning in favour of the customer. had done previously, without causing as many The calendar was a special issue - it took several victims, though - in other words, such scandals decades for the Gregorian calendar to be adopt- Bucharest Up Until the Mid of Our Century 21
Photos: coll . N. Tli escu & D. Aftali on 22 Adrian Cioroianu ed, and the 13-day lag as to the Western calendar Lu ca Caragiale's pen and grows vigorously in to be recuperated. To this day, th ere are people such prose as was written by Mateiu Caragiale, who claim that it was not da ys, but decad es we Hortensia Papadat Bengescu, Ceza r Petresc u, lagged behind the West, and not simply in point George Calinescu and so many oth ers. Yet fe w of calendars, but in every way ... managed to capture th e gist of it as well as th e Starting May 10u1 1877, in the context of new first in this seri es - the pl Photos: co ll. N. lliescu & D. Mtali on Calea \Jictoriei. ·· 24 Adrian Cioroianu Party, in 1875, or the room on Dealul Spirii, a th at seems to be the enduring hallmark of th e place fit for the workers' halls, whi ch witnessed city did reach then its peak. Yet it was not only the birth of the Communist Party, in May 1921. the mod ernists who felt at hom e in Bucharest; Bucharest ha s always bee n th e favourite shop just like Caragiale or Mihai Eminescu in a pre- window of Romanian politics; no serio us obser- vious epoch, a whole intellectual generation was ver will take into account the politi cal turmoil of to make the streets, parks, fla vo urs and rhythms the provinces, for whatever really matters will of th e city part of their own destini es. Mircea E- only happen in th e capital. ln the first half of th e li ade's reveries, the readings and pa ssions of century, two other buildings were raised here women like Jeni Acterian or Alice Voinescu, th e that were almost ostentatiously meant to serve joys and pains of Mihail Sebastian, all speak of a the political sphere. First, the house of the pre- young generation ready to taste both the appa- sent Town-hall, built in 1906-1911 , between the rent spleen of their town and the unmistakable Park and Splaiul Dimbovitei, and de- wine of its und erlying dynamism. In th e summer signed by the distinguished architect Petre An- of 1940, Rosi e Waldeck, an Ameri can journalist ton escu; th e building stood admirably through gifted with the fine sse of a German countess (or th e German bombing of August 1944, yet nearly a co untess with journalisti c insight and sharp- collapsed in recent yea rs wh en a ma yo r who ness, it's quite the sam e thing), com es to Bu- emerged out of th e bubbling waters of December charest and feels the pulse of th e whole country 1989, had the idea to plant two cement lions (a sim ply by clo sely observing th e life on the Victo- gift comin g from China) at th e entrance of th e ria Road. She was persuad ed that this bouleva rd building, in sheer contradiction with th e style of wa s th e most important avenu e in South-Eastern the whole. Second, there was th e Victoria Palace Europe, ju st as th e hotel she was staying in - the (at on e end of th e Victoria Road - main axis of Athenee Palace - wa s, in a way, not only the un- th e cit-y), built later on, starting with 1937; head- official core of th e co untry, but the diplomatic quarters of th e Ministry of Foreign Affairs and center of the Ballrnns too. She was quite right. th en of th e Government of th e cou ntry, th e Vi c- What Ro sie Wald eck could not tell at that toria Pala ce has been from th e very beginning a point, though , is that th e fate of th e inter-war symbol of a town that will always re-emerge out ge.neration will go hand in han d with the fate of of th e ashes of its own tradition. It wa s erected th e city: swept by th e commu ni st wave, both close to the former Sturdza Palace, which wa s th em and it will be forced, after 1945, into a con- demoli shed shortly after the new building was fli ct with their history, memory and tradition, set- fini shed. Itself damaged by th e 1944 bombings, ting up once again, in thi s endless series of re- the Victoria Palace remained, in both literal and hearsals, the stage for the Romanian catastrophe. figurative senses, at the center of our political life, even after December 1989. It was to be- * come the witness of what everybody else in Th e city in tl1e title, that will never a[5ain be Bucharest and in Romania witnessed in this pe- what it used to , does not trigger nostalgia or a riod: people 'emanated' from the revolution, lu- longing for times past; it is fine with me to say xury cars and ambulances, protest movements that Bucharest will never be what it was up until and miners; the fa<;acl e of the palace was long af- 1940 or at any point before that date. terwards left to bear the traces of those clays. Saying that is not necessarily the confession During th e first decad es of th e ce ntury, Bu- of a regret. There is a morale to it all: the com- charest was one of the European towns that be- puting of the disasters undergon e by this city came famous as centers of modernist art and li- co uld go on for ever. The more important thing terature; the taste for innovation and experiment is, I believe, its fanta stic capacity of regenera- Bucharest Up Until the Mid of Our Century 25 Photos: coll. N. lliesc u & D. Aftali on ucureffl. ea/ea V1ctoriel CU J(otel eontinental. 26 Adrian Cioroianu tion, all the more so as it never lacked mortal makes on e appreciate its charming, if dram ati c, enemi es. No matter what one might think at a past and foresee for it a powerful future. first sight, the spirit of Bucharest pulsates with an almost tangible tension; sometimes, it is a Joie de vivre; mo st of th e times, it is an obstination to Translated by Octavian Logiga n live. It is this tension , rather than history, that and Sorana Cornea nu Notes 1. Ancient title of th e official deputed by WalJachia's 4. Rank in the form er arm y forces; also th e nam e of prin ce to rule over th e variou s counties of the coun- a boul evard in Bucharest. (Tanslators' note.) try. (Translators' note. ) 5. A spoiled, snobbish provin cial child - .a character 2. The coordinates of the ce nter of the ca pital - at in the homonymous short story by I. L Caragiale, th e zero kilom eter in St George Square - are who al so made famou s the fa shion of taking walks on 26°4'50" East longitude and 44°25'49" North lati- the Bu charest 'bulivar' (a form th at unistructed but tude. (Author's note.) up-to-date people used for the neologism 'boulevard '). (Translators' note.) 3. Neighborhood situ ated on the outskirts of the city, known as a pretty muddy and poor area - variously translated as ' periph ery' or 'slum '. (Translators' note.)