<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic
\nhas been hitting the headlines for almost two years now, worldwide, in the news
\nprogram and in talk-shows. Physicians, psychologists, sociologists, educational
\nexperts as well as other categories of specialists have presented data from the
\nstand point of their own branch of science, in a bid to draw relevant conclusions.
\nHistorians have also responded to the challenges of our times, even though their
\nprofession is closely linked to exploring the past. So, historians provided
\ntheir own account of humankind’s past experiences related to epidemics. For us,
\nCovid-19 has an identity of its own. And that because science in the 21st
\ncentury has succeeded to notice it and analyse its behaviour. However, in the past,
\nthe agents of disease were not that very well known. At that time, fatality and
\ndoomed fate were considered the causes of plagues by the vast majority of
\npeople. <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Romania’s National History
\nMuseum and Romania’s National Archives jointly staged an exhibition themed Epidemics
\nin the history of Romanian Principalities. The former institution played host
\nto the exhibition. In 2021, Romania’s National Archives celebrate 190 years of
\nexistence. The Archives were founded in 1831, at a time when the Organic Regulation
\nwas issued and which was an early version of a constitution in the
\nprincipalities of Wallachia and Moldavia. By way of celebration for its 190 years
\nof existence, the national Archives presented visitors with relevant documents
\nfor the plagues that hit Wallachia and Moldavia in the past: the contagions of
\ncholera, typhoid fever, exanthematous typhus and Spanish flu. Archivist Claudiu
\nTurcitu was the coordinator of the exhibition. He gave us details on the exhibition
\nproper and its follow-up.<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Claudiu Turcitu:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
In our undertaking,
\nwe sought to make the documents visible to the lay public, under the present
\ncircumstances. And what better documents we could make visible for them, other
\nthan those pertaining to plagues, now that we’re celebrating The National Archives
\n190 years of existence. That’s how we got the idea of mounting this exhibition,
\nall the more so as we’re also preparing a volume, an edition of documents related
\nto the quarantines service.<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Photocopies as well as original
\ndocuments are among the exhibits. Reproductions of documents include photographs,
\nmaps, charts, diary pages, church official acts, official notes, personal
\nnotes. But the oldest document the National Archives presented to the public
\ndates form the 17th century, it was also issued at the time of a plague,
\nthe disease that claimed the lives of the biggest number of people until the 19th
\ncentury. On the day of March 12, 1637, Nedelco gave Gligor an acre of vineyard,
\ntools and money found in the house of his brother, Tudor, so that Gligor may
\nget in there and take out his woman and his little boys who had died of plague,
\nand bury them, since nobody could be found to see to their interment. From another
\ndocuments dated September 1657, we find out that a one Petre Epure had given father
\nNegutu and his sons some apple trees during the plague, when his wife and
\nchildren had died without taking the Communion.<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Claudiu Turcitu:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
We started
\noff from document issued in the year 1637. We grouped them according to the
\nmain plagues that struck the Romanian principalities until 1918, being aware of
\nthe existing space constraints. The first document dates from the time of the plague
\nand is a zapis, a certifying signed document, from a person, for the
\nburial of those who had died because of the plague. Then we go through
\ndocuments dated 1813, at the time of Caragea’s harrowing plague. We even have a
\nhrisov, a charter, from 1813, signed by Caragea for the Dudesti hospital
\nwhich had been previously prepared, in 1789, for those who suffered from the
\nplague.<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
While visiting the
\nexhibition, we also read that in 1827, Ahmed pasha in Nicopole on the river Danube’s
\nsouth bank, allowed the free circulation to the north bank of the river only in
\nthe Teleorman river area, where the quarantine was instated. Elsewhere in the
\nprincipality of Wallachia, people still had to cope with the violent manifestations
\nof the plague. A document, which is relevant even for the year of 1831, is the
\nprayer written by a one Stan, a parish Clerk with the Coltea monastery, located
\nnearby the hospital with the same name in Bucharest. Those were the harrowing
\nyears of the cholera epidemic which had terrified the entire population of
\nWallachia. Another noteworthy document is the executive order issued on
\nFebruary 14, 1846, by Wallachian ruler Gheorghe
\nBibescu, whereby parents had to get their children vaccinated against the
\nchicken pox. Apart from the plague, the exhibition presents the other
\nepidemiological scourges that hit the Romanian society in the 19th century
\nand in the first decades of the 20th century. <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Claudiu Turcitu:<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
We then
\ngo through the cholera epidemic with documents that are part of the War
\nMinistry’s quarantines service collection, private documents actually. There
\nare letters and impressions of the personalities of that time having to do with
\nthe symptoms of the cholera epidemic, with the treatment, with the medical recipes
\nused to contain the cholera epidemic, which lasted rather long. We then go through
\nthe exanthematous typhus, then there is another epidemic that broke out towards
\nthe end of World War One, namely the Spanish flu. We’re closing the exhibition with
\nQueen Marie’s notebooks. We rounded off the exhibition with original documents
\nissued by the interior office of the High Steward (The Interior Ministry) and
\nby the War Ministry, the Ion I. C. Bratianu private collection, actually a report
\ncompiled in a bid to get the funding that was required for the exanthematous typhus.<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
In the past, the
\nepidemics struck the Romanian territory with a devastating force and people
\nknow how to cope with the epidemics. However, in our times, in the technological world
\nwe live in, we can easily imagine an aseptic future, yet microbiology has not
\nhad the last word yet. <\/p>\n
(Translated by Eugen Nasta)<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
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