Once known as the capital of black
\ngold in Romania, Ploie\u0219ti, a city located just north of Bucharest, has had a
\ntroubled but interesting history. Thanks to the crude oil reserves on its
\noutskirts, the city developed quickly beginning with the end of the 19th
\ncentury. Large imposing buildings began to be built and the prospect of
\nenrichment started to attract a variety of people, including from other
\ncountries, who settled in Ploie\u0219ti and contributed to the local life. A recent editorial
\nproject from the Association for Education and Urban Development consisting of
\nfour volumes focuses on the recollections of people who were born and grew up
\nin Ploie\u0219ti but who have ended up living elsewhere. The latest book in this series
\nwas published recently under the title Ploie\u0219tiul amintirilor noastre (Ploie\u0219ti
\nin Our Recollections). Historian Lucian Vasile, who was involved in the
\nproject, tells us more:<\/p>\n
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The book is a natural continuation
\nof an endeavour that began five years ago. We didn’t imagine at the time that we
\nwould come this far, but the response from readers and those who were willing
\nto share their memories and their family and personal stories was extremely
\npositive. The latest book in the series continues some of the stories from
\nprevious books and also contains texts from new contributors. The authors come
\nfrom different backgrounds, have different professions, are of different ages
\nand write about different places and periods. The stories cover almost an
\nentire century of the city’s history and the whole city, from its outskirts,
\nwhere the oil refineries are located, to what has remained of the historical centre.<\/p>\n
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The latest collective volume
\ndedicated to Ploie\u0219ti contains the contributions of 11 authors, some of whom
\nalso contributed to the previous volumes and who belong to inter-war, post-war
\nand contemporary generations. Historian Lucian Vasile is back with more details
\nabout the different authors:<\/p>\n
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One of them is a young man who writes
\nabout the city as he knew it in his childhood in the 1990s. An older author writes
\nabout the city’s merchants almost half a century ago, while another remembers
\nwhat Ploie\u0219ti used to be like during the communist period. The latter’s account
\nis quite amusing, although it also refers to the dramatic events of 1989. The entire
\nRomanian society has undergone radical changes in recent decades. For the very
\nyoung, the stories about the 1990s sometimes seem unbelievable. They are still
\npart of our recent history and a piece of the jigsaw puzzle when it comes to local
\nhistory. History is not only about what happened hundreds of years ago or 80
\nyears ago, but also about what happened 20 or 30 years ago. And this is history
\nwe need to know about and understand in order to be able to understand our
\npresent.<\/p>\n
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Apart from publishing books, the
\nAssociation for Education and Urban Development is also involved in organising
\nguided tours of the historical part of Ploie\u0219ti and the urban transformations, often
\nunfortunate, which they city saw during the communist period. These tours are
\npopular not only with local residents, but also with people from Bucharest and
\nother cities. Historian Lucian Vasile explains:<\/p>\n
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Our tours are primarily about
\nhistory. The stories we tell in our books and our guided tours complement the
\ninformation provided by local museums. As a matter of fact, Ploie\u0219ti has some excellent
\nmuseums which are different from the museums in other parts of the country in
\nterms of theme. I’m thinking about the Clock Museum and the Hagi Prodan Burgher’s House Museum. The
\nrecent past still generates heated debate and I think Romanian society is yet
\nto reach a consensus or a common, universally accepted view about its recent
\npast. At the end of the day, however, it’s only natural to have different views.
\nFor some, the radical transformations that began in 1945 were disastrous and
\ntragic, and the crimes and destruction that followed cannot be denied. For others,
\nhowever, the same events were also an opportunity to climb the social ladder. Places
\nand buildings that appeared in the wake of the destruction of historical
\nheritage and which are seen by some as very ugly are considered by others to be
\nan integral part of an improvement in living standards and housing in the case
\nof apartment blocks. Each view has its own reasoning, and we must understand
\nand accept it.<\/p>\n
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That was historian Lucian Vasile from the Association
\nfor Education and Urban Development, which recently published a fourth book in
\na series dedicated to the history of the city of Ploiesti in the last 100 years
\nas seen by former residents. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Recent publication brings together recollections of Ploie\u0219ti residents about their city.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":83019,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[45210],"tags":[44055],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-169787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rri-encyclopaedia","tag-ploiesti"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n