On October 16, 1922, after
\nthe grand ceremony in which King Ferdinand I and Queen Marie were crowned as
\nsovereigns of Greater Romania in the Alba Iulia Cathedral, the Triumphal Arch
\nwas also inaugurated. The royal procession, with representatives of European
\ncountries, military units and floats paraded under it at the time. In 2022, the
\ncentennial of the Coronation is also the centennial of the Triumphal Arch, the
\nfirst permanent monument of this kind in Romania.<\/p>\n
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Public monuments
\nrooted in ancient Roman architecture, triumphal arches were built in Bucharest just
\nlike elsewhere in the world, to commemorate war victories or significant public
\nevents. The previous such monumental structures in the Romanian capital city
\nhad only been temporary, and had been built in 1848, 1859, 1878, 1906 and 1918 to
\ncelebrate glorious events: the 1948 revolution, the union of the Romanian
\nPrincipalities, Romania’s independence, 40 years of rule for King Carol I, the
\nvictory in World War I. <\/p>\n
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The triumphal arch
\nunder which King Ferdinand I and Queen Marie passed on their return to their
\ncapital as sovereigns of the Greater Kingdom of Romania was built in 1922, and
\nmade of wood. But this was also when a decision was made to build a stone arch.
\nThe current Arch is a 27m tall structure designed by the Romanian architect Petre
\nAntonescu and inaugurated in 1936.<\/p>\n
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A commemoration held this
\nyear to mark the events that took place 100 years ago included an exhibition
\npaying tribute to the Romanian soldiers that fought in World War I. The items
\non display within the Arch mainly consisted of letters sent home by soldiers
\nand received by them from families and friends. <\/p>\n
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Emotion and poetry
\nare the best words to describe these documents. Moreover, even when all the
\nauthors of such letters understood the political reasons behind the war, they
\nstill regarded it as absurd. <\/p>\n
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\n
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\n
<\/p>\n
We asked Titus Bazac,
\ninspector with the Bucharest City Hall’s Directorate General for Architecture,
\nLandscaping and Public Monuments, about the highlights of this exhibition. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Titus Bazac:Inside the two piers of the Arch
\nthere are two halls. In both of them as well as on the two landings, there are
\nseveral dioramas. In one of the piers, there is a replica of a peasant home
\ninterior, where a mother is crying while knitting socks for her son and
\nwondering why he had to go to battle. She is wondering whether this suspension
\nof the natural cycle of life, with her son going away from home, was in any way
\nsensible. Then we have another interior, it may be either a rural or urban
\nhouse, with a lamp on a table and a mother asking why she had to go through
\nthis ordeal, battling her decision to allow her son to go to war, a dramatic
\nscene altogether.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
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The walls of the Arch
\nare covered in collages of photographs and facsimiles of archive letters. Mother
\nis sick with worry about your fate, a soldier’s sister writes. My love, the
\nkid and I are missing you and waiting for you to come home, an officer’s wife
\nsays. My son, be a man, do your duty and come back in one piece, a father
\nwrites to a soldier. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
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\n
<\/p>\n
In the attic,
\nvisitors go under a huge roll of paper spread over the ceiling, coming up from
\none pier and carrying on down on the other pier. Titus Bazac also gave us
\ndetails about what the exhibition includes in the second pier: <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Titus Bazac:On the way down on the second pier we
\nhave a diorama of a trench where a soldier is simply devastated by the
\nsituation the war faced him with. Another soldier is trying to write a few
\nwords to his family but cannot decide how his letter should begin. And the last
\nscene, a little chilling, is a grave. We can see on a monitor a firing squad, a
\nsymbol of the cruelty with which all WWI soldiers had to struggle. It is also
\nrelevant for an episode in writer Liviu Rebreanu’s works: the Romanian soldier
\nforced to fight against other Romanians. He eventually switches sides, but is
\ncaught and executed. This is the most emotional moment of this exhibition.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
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The coronation of
\nKing Ferdinand I and Queen Marie as sovereigns of Greater Romania in 1922 would
\nnot have been possible without the sacrifice of the entire Romanian society. And the Triumphal Arch, the most powerful material
\ntestimony to those times, reminds us of those sacrifices to this day. (AMP)<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In 2022, the centennial of the Coronation is also the centennial of the Triumphal Arch<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":129963,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41141],"tags":[42947,33313,35132,42946],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-131543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-history-show","tag-arch","tag-centennial","tag-coronation","tag-triumphal"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n