Aron Pumnul High School in Chernivtsi (Cernăuți)
In the capital of Bukovina, Chernivtsi, in Romanian Cernăuți, the Romanian elites had formed in the national spirit, with the Aron Pumnul High School being the spearhead.
Steliu Lambru, 13.04.2026, 14:00
School is what has mostly shaped human beings starting with the 18th century, when humanity began to understand that only through education can human beings get emancipated. Education at all levels has contributed to the spread of knowledge and educated citizens in the spirit of the ideas of the time. And Romanians have connected to the spirit of the times through school education.
One of the provinces that united with the Kingdom of Romania in 1918 and formed Greater Romania was Bukovina, on November 28. In the capital of Bukovina, Chernivtsi, in Romanian Cernăuți, the Romanian elites had formed in the national spirit, with the Aron Pumnul High School being the spearhead. Many generations of Romanians were educated there, among them the sociologist and demographer Vladimir Trebici. In 1997, interviewed by the Oral History Center of the Romanian Radio Broadcasting Corporation, Trebici, born in a commune located three kilometers east of Cernăuți, on the banks of the Prut River, recalled his high school studies at the Aron Pumnul High School.
Vladimir Trebici: “The parents’ ambition, a noble ambition, was for all the children to attend higher education besides primary school. Because of this, all the children attended high school, two of them, namely me and my older brother, attended Aron Pumnul High School, about which I wrote a monograph. The high school was founded in 1808, it became famous especially for Romanians because, in 1849, Aron Pumnul started his Romanian language course at this high school. And among his students, the most famous was Mihai Eminescu. So, we, me and my older brother, attended Aron Pumnul High School, the other two brothers attended the high school that was later called Mitropolitul Silvestru, while our high school was classical, the other was a science and mathematics high school.”
Vladimir Trebici had reached an elite high school on his own merit. But primary school had provided him with the foundations of knowledge: “Before attending high school, my parents had the good inspiration to send me to the primary school in Cernăuţi, the oldest school, which, during the Austrian era, was called the Main Moldavian School, and where I had Eminescu as my predecessor. Eminescu attended two classes at the Primary School in Cernăuţi, in 1858-59 and 1859-60, I had the chance to see the certificates of the student Eminovici, as he was called at the time. I attended the last class of primary school there and I must say that this was eight years after the Great Union of 1918. Therefore, this primary school was also in the process of Romanianization, as was the entire education system in Bukovina.”
Although national ideas were fully manifested before 1918 in Austrian Bukovina, multilingualism was something normal in Cernăuți and cherished as such. Vladimir Trebici has more details: “The environment of the Cernăuți of yore was a cosmopolitan environment. I had the opportunity, a few years ago, at the invitation of the associations of Bukovina Germans in Germany, to hold a conference on tolerance in my Cernăuți during the period when I was a pupil and student. I was showing what the relations were between the many ethnicities that existed then throughout Bukovina, but especially in Cernăuți. In Cernăuți there were Romanians, there were Austrians, therefore Germans, but the most numerous ethnic group was that of the Jews. There were also Ukrainians, Poles, Armenians and so on. This is the environment of the city, the environment that I knew very well, the everyday life. I was able to testify, as I will do in the future, about the spirit of tolerance that was formed.”
The high school within the Romanian education system had a solid tradition dating back to the Habsburg era. It was a healthy competitive environment in which learning was rewarded and membership was a source of pride even for those who were no longer students. Vladimir Trebici explains: “It was a serious high school. When I say serious, it was the Austrian tradition. The high school was founded in 1808 and was the oldest high school in Bukovina. In the early years until 1848, it’s almost unbelievable that the language of instruction was Latin. I entered high school in 1926. Those who entered the high school before me learned Latin from grade 1 to 8 every day, and on Saturdays they even studied it for two hours. Classical Greek was taught from grade 3 to 8. So it’s no wonder that even the high school support staff made a point of saying a few Latin words. We, the children, were very amused, but at the same time impressed that even the support staff knew Latin. This was the high school tradition: mathematics was less present in the curriculum, instead we had Latin, Greek, history, geography, chemistry, and physics. Not to mention that religion was a mandatory subject in our high school.”
The Aron Pumnul High School in Cernăuți was a nursery of educated people who followed their vocation and built their careers. And the Romanians of Bukovina owe it a lot for what they feel they are today. (LS)
