History Show

history show Scheii Brasovului in central Romania hosted the first education institution in the Romanian space, back in 1495.

Scheii Brasovului was the burgh that was fated to host the first education institution in the Romanian space, back in 1495. The building was restored in the 18th century, and today is home to the 'First Romanian School' museum. Father Vasile Oltean talked to us about the history of this monument:


 "Across history, we can see that the church sheltering this area had as patrons 32 rulers and noblemen of Wallachia and Moldavia. Thanks to this fact, confirmed by 80 royal edicts, today hosted by this museum, a Romanian cultural and spiritual center was created here, materialized in the first Romanian school. History tells us that Romanian education dates back to the 16th century, but his is contradicted by the chronicle of the church, which says clearly that, "the holy church and school were erected in 1495". How can we not believe what the chronicle says, considering that in 1932, Aurelia Muresan published the documents of the construction in 1495. This is documentation capable of proving the truth. In the meantime, we find this in the text of the papal bull issued by Boniface the 9th, of December 13, 1392, in which the pope in Rome spoke of the schismatic church in Schei, where pseudo-teachers taught."


Genuine cultural centers flourished around the School of Schei, being representative not only for the Barsa Land but for the entire Romanian region. The books by deacon Coresi were printed here in Romanian for the first time. Dimitrie Eustatievici, a local from Brasov, wrote here the first Romanian grammar back in 1757. Father Vasile Oltean, who is also a teacher, told us more about the tumultuous history of the first Romanian school in Scheii Brasovului.  


 I am thinking of the year 1981, when we first discovered the 700 pages school manuscript from the 11th - 12th centuries. The lesson on virtue alone has 250 pages.  Such a big volume of major importance and with such a rich content is evidence that there was a high-level education system back then. I was trying to imagine the profile of the student who was supposed to study that manual. We have 15 storerooms and another three rooms that are still unexplored. We have 6,000 old books and 30 thousand documents. Until 1962 all these had been hidden in the steeple. Nobody knew about that, but in 1962, an old man, professor Ioan Colan, went to the tower to take a board. He pulled the board out of the wall and made such a break into it that he was able to see the room where these documents were hidden. Ioan Colan served an 8-year prison sentence for keeping Saguna's bible in his private book collection; he didn't accept to burn it so he was declared a thief and enemy of the people. After his jail years he got a job here at the church as unskilled carpenter, in spite of having three bachelor degrees and three PhDs."


In 1949, along with Ana Pauker's decree, under which all assets in the church patrimony were to be burnt out, the documents belonging to the School in Schei were also to be destroyed. A priest had hidden them in the walls of the church tower, to protect them from the imminent destruction ordered by the communist authorities. They stayed there until 1962, when somebody found them. Dean Vasile Cuman started right away the organization of the Schei museum. Here is with details father Vasile Oltean once more .


 " If we have a 16th century school-book, it means that there was definitely a school back then. We also found a class book, probably the oldest in the country, dating back to 1683. The school had just one teacher, Ioan Duma, who had 110 pupils. The oldest of them was 20 years old. He would come to school for 3 months, then he would become a 'gociman'. The word comes from the German "Gottsmann", meaning 'God's man'. It was in fact the administrator of the settlement and of the church. Administrators back then had a big power, they could even sack the priest, if he wasn't fit for the job. If he stayed 6 months in school, he would become a teacher and a deacon. He would sing in church and take care of the school. If he stayed 9 months, he would become a priest. In order to be allowed in school, a pupil was supposed to bring a bucket of wheat, a cart full of wood and money, four Florins, as the class book shows. But it was not the pupil or the father who would pay, it was the responsibility of the entire village. The fact that there were 110 pupils shows that children came from the entire Barsa Land, not just locals. The first girl was only registered in 1846."


In the Schei School's collection there is also the first book in Slavic, written in 1491, printed under order by the ruler of Moldavia, Stephen the Great. Sweipold Fiol was the one who, without knowing it, printed the first orthodox book, although he was in the center of the Catholic world, in Krakow. The 6 thousand old books and the 30 thousand documents in Brasov include genuine treasures of universal culture.



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Publicat: 2015-07-13 13:12:00
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