<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Stephen
\nthe Great was the most important ruling prince in the history of Moldavia. Stephen
\nthe Great ruled Moldavia for 47 years, between the second half of the 15th
\ncentury and the early 16th century, actually between 1457 and 1504. It
\nwas a most remarkable feat in itself, not only because of its duration, at a
\ntime when instability was rampant, but also because of the management of power.
\nStephen the Great knew how to play an intelligent game between Hungary and
\nPoland, then the regional powers, and the Ottoman Empire, in turn being their
\nally and their opponent. <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Romanian historians of the Romantic period in the 19th
\ncentury created a heroic image of Stephen the Great, as well as an image of a
\npowerful and thriving Moldavia. However, even during such an auspicious reign as
\nthat of Stephen the Great, the principality of Moldavia still lay at the periphery
\nof European civilization. If we look into the external and internal documents
\nof that time, we can see Moldavia was a marginal territory, with people living
\non limited means and with a high degree of insecurity. Historian and archeologist
\nAdrian Andrei Rusu is the author of the most recent work on Stephen the Great’s
\nruling period. Rusu focuses on the material civilization of Moldavia in the
\nsecond half of the 15th century. The historian is set to bust the exaggerations of
\nhistorians of the Romantic period as well as the archaeological errors. Historian
\nOvidiu Cristea is affiliated to the Nicolae Iorga Institute of History. Dr
\nCristea told us the discrepancy between what the authors of the documents say
\nand the historians is caused by the difficulty to tailor the language and the
\ncontent of the past to suit the demands of the present. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Ovidiu Cristea:<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I am quoting one of
\nprofessor Rusu’s tenets: the medieval reality could not have been covered by
\nthe dictionaries of the chancellery language. And at this point, a very good
\nexample was provided by Umberto Eco. Examining Marco Polo’s text,
\nEco used to say Marco Polo mentioned some sort of unicorn because, to the best
\nof his knowledge at that time, what he had seen, and which was in fact a
\nrhinoceros, could not possibly have been expressed through an appropriate word.
\nUsing his knowledge of the medieval bestiary, Polo spoke about a unicorn
\ninstead of of mentioning a rhinoceros. And that can also happen when we run
\ninto apparently unusual objects, whose usefulness is unbeknownst to us. <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Historian Adrian Rusu said that in his most recent research nhe focused,
\namong other things, on as detailed as possible descriptions of daily life, in a
\nbid to make the Moldavian world at the time of Stephen the Great accessible to contemporary
\nreadership. A case in point was the recast of the residence where Stephen the Great
\nused to live, which was something that had never been done before. <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Dr Adrian Adrei Rusu:<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I had to go over
\nthe entire archaeological and architectural information for a second time
\naround and prove that in his Suceava castle, Stephen had princely suites. He
\nhad an assembly hall with a gothic vault, with very beautiful keys and, come to
\nthink of it, the Moldavian rulers even had a bathroom, a cold-water bathroom
\nand a hot-water bathroom. There also was a garden, which was absolutely normal
\nfor all neighboring princely and royal courts. It was hard to imagine for those ruling princes, especially for
\nStephen the Great, who had a long-lasting and unswerving reign, which was
\nstrongly built into all sectors of civilization, to be deprived of something which,
\nin his time, simply went with the territory.<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
As for the dynamism of the economic activity in Moldavia, historian
\nAdrian Rusu expressed his skepticism. <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
We’re speaking about the great trade route,
\ncrossing Moldavia from north to south, but shipment was only made of
\npepper and silks, and that could not be a driving force for civilization. Very
\nfew people got rich doing that kind of trade. Other people got rich, the Saxons
\nin Transylvania, Brasov and Bistritsa got rich, in Moldavia they were selling
\nnails, hammers, hacksaws, timber, textile, all that the ordinary people of that
\ntime needed. All those products, in fact, pushed society forward. There also
\nwas a come-and-go movement of craftsmen, they did not settle in Moldavia.
\nThey came and worked seasonally, yet they worked constantly because Stephen the
\nGreat offered them an inflow of construction yards, he guaranteed their payment
\nand that is how that string or architectural foundations came into being and
\nwhich also began to perform stylistically. <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Under the circumstances, how was it possible for Stephen the Great’s
\nreign to be that long? Here is historian Adrian Rusu once again, attempting an
\nexplanation. <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Clearly it is all about his personal qualities. The man understood
\nhis time, and understood his competitors. It was all clear that one year after
\nthe next during his reign, he was threatened by the rivals who could turn up in
\ndroves from everywhere. He was capable of knowing his country, his was a
\ngovernance solution he inherited from John Hunyadi. If you want to know your
\ncountry, you need to go places all the time so that people can see you. It wasn’t
\nwritten anywhere, but everyone could tell it was a princely suite coming. There were
\nsigns of display of the princely authority we were not that much aware of: how exactly
\nthe ruling prince showed up before his country ? .<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
In 2006,
\nas part of the Great Romanians contest, Stephen the Great was voted the greatest
\nRomanian ever to have existed. Yet about the voivode and his age, we need to
\nknow all about that using a language
\nwhich remains a language of the past but which always needs to be adapted to
\nthe present. <\/p>\n
(EN)<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A fresh perspective on Stephen the Great’s reign of Moldavia<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":131494,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41141],"tags":[31651,29457,42932,42934,30748,42933],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-131493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-history-show","tag-court","tag-politics","tag-reign","tag-route","tag-trade","tag-voivode"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n