Crosses have been a constant presence in the urban
\nhabitat of Romania’s capital city, Bucharest. Throughout the years, no less
\nthan fifty such crosses have been placed in various points, with some of them
\nmarking military or social events, while others marked the border between properties.
\nSome of the crosses had the role of cenotaph or diptych. There were also crosses
\nthat were displaced and placed again in the lapidary of such monasteries as
\nAntim of the Brancoveanu palaces in Mogosoaia. <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The oldest such monument in Ruler Leon’s Cross, made
\nof wood. Leon was the ruling prince of Wallachia between 1629 and 1632. Leon raised the cross to mark his win in
\nthe battle against Matei Basarab on August 23rd, 1631. The wooden cross
\ndeteriorated; Leon’s son, Radu Leon, had it rebuilt, this time using stone as construction
\nmaterial.<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Another cross, initially made of wood and rebuilt of stone, later, is the cross of Papa Br\u00e2ncoveanu, Wallachian ruling
<\/p>\n Cezar-Petre Buiumaci is a museographer
<\/p>\n The predicament
Here is museographer Cezar-Petre
<\/p>\n One of
<\/p>\n At the
<\/p>\n The Cross of Bessarabia Cross is a wooden cross brought from Chisinau by a group
<\/p>\n Bucharest’s stone crosses, with strong and artistically
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Romania’s capital city Bucharest, past into present<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":123226,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[45210],"tags":[34925,116701,116699,116700,43303],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-621906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rri-encyclopaedia","tag-cross","tag-ensemble","tag-mark","tag-misfortune","tag-stone"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
\nprince Constantin Br\u00e2ncoveanu’s father. The former ruled between 1688 and 1714.
\nPapa Brancoveanu was killed in 1655 during the uprising of the mercenary corps
\narmed with muskets, seimeni,<\/em> in Romanian, and the corps of foot soldiers,
\ndorobanti,<\/em> in Romanian. <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
\nwith the Bucharest Municipality Museum. Dr Buiumaci is also a coordinator of a project
\nt dedicated to the stone crosses from Romania’s capital city Bucharest. We first
\nasked him what the explanation was, for the emergence of the crosses as public monuments
\nin Bucharest, prior to the modern period.<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
\npeople at that time had been going though prompted them to erect monuments with
\na twofold significance: first, to protect them from any misfortune, at once
\nreminding them of the plight that befell them. A case in point is the stone
\ncross erected by the commander of mounted troops (serdar, <\/em>in Romanian) Matei Mogo\u0219
\n(Mogo\u0219escu) on his estate in the early 18th century, in the hopes
\nthat the plague pandemic that ravished the city would come to an end. The cross
\nbecame so important in the community’s mindset that Bishop Grigore II a had a
\nchurch built around the cross. Placed in the altar of the Old Obor Church, the
\ncross, meant to remind people of plague and famine, can be seen with difficulty,
\ntoday, as it became a worship object. We can find this kind of reminiscing again,
\nin Vienna, where the emperor, in late 17th century, had a column
\nbuilt, dedicated to the divine charity when the plague epidemic came to an end.
\nIn Arad, in the mid-18th century, the plague column was erected, having
\nthe Holy Trinity as its main representation. We can also find similar monuments
\nin other cities in Banat, Hungary or Germany, built in the wake of the pledge
\nthat was made, when the plague was eradicated. The power the public crosses had
\nover Bucharest city dwellers’ lifestyle and collective psyche was impressive.<\/span><\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n
\nBuiumaci once again, this time summing up the story of one of those crosses.<\/span><\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
\nthe crosses with a special relevance in the history of Bucharest is Neophit’s
\nCross, a cross which is as visible as it is unknown. It was erected by Ungrovlahia’s
\nbishop, Neophit the Cretan, with the purpose of being a border stone. What
\nprompted the bishop to do that were the repeated trespassings of the plots of
\nland and vineyards by the Greek priors of the Mihai Voda monastery. In the wake
\nof the inquest he carried on the ground, the bishop decided that the cross should
\nbe placed where the Paupers’ Fountain was found on Barracks Street. It’s just
\nthat the inquest he conducted on the ground did not take the course he thought
\nit would take, because the father superiors in Mihai Voda talked the slum dwellers
\ninto clamming up, with respect to the old borders of the metropolitan church’s
\nplots of land. He noticed he received no info at all, capable of helping him in
\nhis endeavor, so Neophit had no choice other than placing a curse on the slum dwellers,
\nwith the purpose of finding out the truth. The Great curse or the Most
\nterrible anathema were read out in the Alb\u0103-Post\u0103vari, Abbot, Gorgani and Golescu
\nchurches in the first three Lent Sundays, targeting the people who knew about
\nthe measuring marks for those plots of land but who wouldn’t speak up. The
\naction turned out to be successful because, as soon as the commission tasked
\nwith solving the case showed up, the slum dwellers identified the measuring
\nmarks. <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
\nheart of the capital city, in the University Square, lies one of Bucharest’s
\nmost recent public crosses. Near the roadside crosses commemorating the December
\n1989 Revolution, the Cross of Bessarabia can be found. Cezar-Petre Buiumaci also briefed us up
\non the story of the entire ensemble there.<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
\nof students from Republic of Moldova as part of the Union March, and placed
\nthere on March 27, 1992, on the very day Bessarabia’s Union with Romania is
\ncelebrated. The wooden cross is the symbol of people’s unity and is actually
\nthe first cross of today’s ensemble that was placed on the very spot where a couple of
\nroadside crosses used to stand, erected in December 1989. There were other eight
\nstone crosses placed here, brought from Alexeni, Ialomita County, and which,
\ntogether, make the December 1989 Revolution Heroes’ Ensemble which, as of that
\nyear, has become the main place for the commemoration of the 1989 Revolution
\nmartyrs. It is a salient example of the change in significance of a monument,
\nfrom a border stone into a public monument, with relevance for the
\nrecent history. <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
\nexpressive messages, are part and parcel of today’s urbanscape. Bucharesters may
\nhave got used to passing them by every day, yet the stone crosses still
\nmaintain their symbolic significance intact. <\/p>\n