Buzău
—  county seat  —
The Communal Palace in Dacia Square, Buzău
Coat of arms
Buzău Location of Buzău
Coordinates: 45°10′N 26°49′E / 45.167°N 26.817°E / 45.167; 26.817Coordinates: 45°10′N 26°49′E / 45.167°N 26.817°E / 45.167; 26.817
Country	Romania
County	Buzău County
Status	county seat
First official record	376 AD
Government
• Mayor	Constantin Boşcodeală (PSD)
Area
• Total	81.3 km2 (31.4 sq mi)
Elevation	95 m (312 ft)
Population (2011)[1]
• Total	108,384
• Density	1,333/km2 (3,450/sq mi)
Time zone	EET (UTC+2)
• Summer (DST)	EEST (UTC+3)
Website	http://www.primariabuzau.ro

The city of Buzău (formerly Buzeu, or Buzĕu; Romanian pronunciation: [buˈzəw]) is the county seat of Buzău County, Romania, in the historical region of Wallachia. It lies near the right bank of the Buzău River, between the south-eastern curvature of the Carpathian Mountains and the lowlands of Bărăgan Plain.

The city's name dates back to 376 AD when the name appeared on a letter that spoke about the martyrdom of Sabbas the Goth. During the Middle Ages, Buzău was as an important Wallachian market town and Eastern Orthodox episcopal see. It faced a period of repeated destruction during the 17th and 18th century, nowadays symbolized on the city seal by the Phoenix bird. Those destructions are the main reason for which no building older than the 18th century exists in the city. After that, Buzău slowly recovered to become nowadays an important modern city in south-eastern Romania.

The city's landmark building is the Communal Palace, located in the central Dacia Square. The Nicolae Bălcescu Boulevard links it to the Crâng park, Buzău's main recreational area.

Buzău is a railway hub in south-estern Romania, where railways that link Bucharest to Moldavia and Transylvania to the Black Sea coast meet. DN2, a segment of European route E85 crosses the city. Buzău's proximity to trade routes helped it develop its role as a commerce hub in older days, and as an industrial center during the 20th century. Most of the city's industry was developed during Romania's communist period, and was refactored through the 1990s to a capitalist economical framework.

Demographics[link]

Population[link]

• 1832: 2,567
• 1864: 9,027
• 1892: 17,300
• 1900: 21,000
• 1941: 44,511
• 1968: 66,433
• 1977: 101,149
• 1992: 148,087
• 2002: 134,227
• 2011: 108,384

At the 2011 census, the population of Buzău had the following ethnic composition:

• Romanians: 102,739 - 94.79%
• Roma: 5,320 - 4.91%

Landmarks[link]

The Communal Palace at night

The city's most important landmark is the Communal Palace, built between 1899 and 1903, now serving as City Hall. Along with the Courthouse, the Communal Palace was designed by architects commissioned by mayor Nicu Constantinescu, at the end of the 19th century.

Cuza Voda Street, in the old commercial town center

From the Communal Palace, Cuza Vodă Street leads to the Bazaar. The Cuza Vodă Street features late 19th century buildings

Crâng Park, carved in the corner of a larger forest, lies in the western outskirts of the town and is a remnant of the old Codrii Vlăsiei. Crâng was designed in the late 19th century. It has an obelisk, erected in 1976 to celebrate 1600 years since the town's first recorded historical attestation.

The oldest building in Buzău is the Vergu-Mănăilă house, erected in the 17th or 18th century as a boyars' mansion. Renovated between 1971–1974, it now hosts the local Museum of ethnography and folk art.

The church of Banului, erected in the 16th century as a monastery, underwent renovation several times. In 1884, it was repainted by a team of painters including Gheorghe Tattarescu and his uncle Nicolae Teodorescu.

An old tradition of the city is the Drăgaica fair, a midsummer fair traced back to traditional shepherd's fairs in the Buzău mountains, that moved to Buzău sometimes before the 18th century.

Geography[link]

Buzău is located between the Buzău river valley, that forms its northern bounds, the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains' curvature and the Danube Plain. It has an oblong shape, as it is larger along the Buzău river and shorter across. The altitude of Buzău ranges from 101 meters in the North-West, near the hills to 88 meters close to the river, with a 95 meter average (as is also the altitude in the Dacia square, in the center).^[2] Therefore, Buzău is located on a flat relief, with a 10 meters altitude difference along a 4 km line.^[2]

Climate[link]

Annual rainfall amounts to 500 mm^[3] and the winter snow can be as high as 30 cm.^[3] The Buzău river has frequent flow fluctuations, especially in spring, when snow melting in the mountains enhance the water flow. Therefore the city was built far from a deep riverbed and the river does not flood the city. At the major floods of 2005 in Romania, the waters damaged the bridge across the Buzău river north of Buzău, but did no damage whatsoever to the city.

The climate is mostly continental, with an average 92 days of frost a year (16 days with temperatures below -10 degrees Celsius), but also with 92 days of summer, prone to excessive heat and drought.^[3]

Flora and fauna[link]

Flora is represented in Buzău by the remainder of the Codrii Vlăsiei in the west, a 189 hectares oak forest. Crâng Park occupies 10 hectares of this forest. Most streets in Buzău have trees planted alongside them, such as chestnuts on the Nicolae Bălcescu Boulevard and lime trees on the Unirii Boulevard. Flowers grown by the local people in the yard typically include various species of roses, hyacinths, tulips, peonies, cranesbills and petunias, as well as vine and ivy for shade.

Wild fauna in Buzău is represented by typical temperate climate city-dwelling species. The most common birds are the house sparrow, the collared dove and the goldfinch, while the rodents are represented by the ferret and the brown rat. Lakes are inhabited by small fish such as the rhodeus amarus and eels, as well as by green lizards and snails.

History[link]

First recorded historical attestation[link]

The earliest mention on the river Buzău and the polis (named Mousaios (Μουσαίος) in Greek) on its bank is a letter from Ioannis Soranus, governor of Scytia Minor, to the archbishop of Caesarea Mazaca (about 400 A.D.). The document, kept in copies at the Vatican Library and San Marco Library in Venice, tells about the martyrdom of a Christian missionary by the name of Sabbas, drowned by the Goths in the river Buzău. He is the spiritual patron of the city of Buzău as well as of several local villages.

Several graves (3rd to 5th century) were found in Buzău, as well as coins that prove the continuance of the settlement.

Market town and bishopric in the Middle Ages[link]

Cuza Vodă street, with the Communal Palace tower in the background

Buzău evolved during the Middle Ages as a commercial and cultural center.

Gustav Treiber, in his work Siebenburgische Viertel Jahresschrit states that prior to the 12th century, the city was surrounded by a wall with four gates towards the four main directions.

The earliest mention of Buzău as a market town (târg) and customs station is found in a document, dated January 31, 1431, and issued by Dan II, voivod of Wallachia. The document stated that salesmen from Braşov were free to trade in several Wallachian towns (Buzău, among them) just as they were during the reign of Mircea cel Bătrân. These privileges have been later reinforced by Vlad III the Impaler, who stated that the roads to be taken by the salesmen were to be: via Rucăr, Prahova, Teleajen or Buzău.^[4]

In 1500, Radu cel Mare created The Bishopric of Buzău, making the town a spiritual center of Eastern Wallachia. In 1507, Buzău appears (under the name of Boza) for the first time on a map, made by Nicolaus Germanus. At the time, the city was the 4th largest city of Wallachia, and an important trade partner of Braşov. Between 1503 and 1515, the salesmen from Buzău traded merchandise worth 2,245,835 aspres^[4] (an Ottoman currency). A document dated 1536 shows that the town was administered by one judeţ (mayor) and 12 elected pârgari (city councillors).^[5] Underground tunnels dating back to the 16th century connect the bishopric's complex, the city center and the Crâng Park (at the time, only a large forest at the town's outskirts). Their role was to store supply and evacuate people in case of danger.^[5]

The Banu Church

In 1571, the Banu monastery was erected. The monastery's name, "Banu", indicates the nobility title of its builder, ban Andronic Cantacuzino. The monastery church was rebuilt by Andreiana, wife of Şerban Cantacuzino, in 1722. After the monastic assets secularizing act of 1863, the monastery was dismantled; its church, however, was sparred.

A 1575 document mentions the Bazaar (permanent market with shops, stores, cellars, storage rooms). The Bazaar of Buzău was the second oldest in Wallachia. At the end of the 16th century, Buzău was divided in four parts: the Bishopric with its servants, the Banu monastery and its servants, the old market and the city (located between the bishopric and the monastery).

During the last decade of the 16th century, around 18,000 Serbs settled in Wallachia. Several families made Buzău their home, by founding a neighbourhood known to this day by the name Serbs and located on the bank of the Buzău River. Later, in 1792-1838, many Bulgarian refugees settled in the same neighbourhood.^[6] Due to similarities of the mother tongues spoken by the two ethnic groups, the locals called the new refugees also Serbs. The Bulgarians were given land by the river where they created vegetable gardens.^[6]

Successive destructions[link]

The late Middle Ages brought a wave of destruction to the town, Buzău being completely or partially destroyed by multiple wars and foreign military invasions, as well as natural disasters.

The Vergu-Mănăilă house, the oldest building of Buzău, dating back to the 1780s. It is the only building in Buzău dating back to the city's age of destructions (17th-18th century)

The army of Mihai Viteazul was located in Buzău in 1596. After the army left, the city was devastated in 1597 by Ottoman and Tatar raids. The next year, Mihai Viteazul brought gifts to the inhabitants of the city to compensate for the damages. The chronicler Balthasar Walter described the tatar invasion of 1597:

In April 1616, many houses in Buzău were burnt down during a Polish invasion, during one of the Moldavian Magnate Wars. The inhabitants took refuge in the nearby mountains and forests. All existing land deeds were lost at the event. One year later, in July 1617, the city was once again occupied by the Ottoman army.

Buzău was pillaged by Tatars again in 1623, as pointed out by Matei Basarab in a 1633 letter:

The oldest recorded seal of Buzău (1831), showing a Phoenix, symbol of the city's repeated rebirth after destruction

A Turkish invasion in 1659 again led to the city being burnt down and destroyed, and the locals being taken captive. In 1679, Buzău was pillaged again by the Ottomans. The city was rebuilt every time, thus appearing on a 1700 map of Wallachia, printed in Padova by stolnic Constantin Cantacuzino. The map shows 22 other cities and market towns of the country.

After a period of relative peace, during which the bishopric was subsidized by the domn to open a school in Greek and another in Slavonic, in 1739, during a Russo-Turkish War, Russian troops as well as Frilow's Cossacks ravaged through Buzău, taking the bishop with them as they went.^[9]

During another Russo-Turkish War, Ottoman soldiers burnt all the stores and houses, burning the city to the ground. The Bishopric church was also destroyed, and the bishop moved temporarily to Bucharest. The Banu monastery church escaped destruction, only to be destroyed in 1774 by an earthquake. Also, during the Russo-Turkish War of 1787 - 1792, the city was once again destroyed.^[10] The long string of war-caused damage went on in 1806 and 1807, when the Ottoman army burnt down the city to ruins leaving 230 people dead. The locals fled to the Nişcov river valley, from where they returned only in 1812.^[11]

The cholera and bubonic plague epidemics at the beginning of the 19th century also decimated the city's population (see Caragea's plague).

The last time the city was devastated by war was in 1821 at the Greek War of Independence.^[12] After that, in light of the establishment of the Organic Regulations, a period of reconstruction and modernisation began. Also, Wallachia stopped being a theatre of operations in the wars between the Ottoman Empire and Russia, the conflincts moving further away, in Crimea, the Southern and Western Balkans and the Caucasus.

Thus, although Buzău's name is attested by documents as a river with a polis on its banks, since the 4th century, and as a market town since 1431, the oldest building in the city is the Vergu-Mănăilă house, erected as recently as the 18th century, around 1780. The Vergu-Mănăilă house was owned at the time by a high-ranking boyar named Vergu, who owned a pub and a bakery near the house.

19th Century development[link]

A fair in Buzău, 1869 watercolour by Amedeo Preziosi

Buzău, c.1901

During the 19th century, the city overcame the difficulties of repeated reconstruction, and started to develop as a modern city with solid businesses and a cultural life. The Crâng forest became a leisure place for the locals around 1829, and was eventually organized as a public garden by 1850.

Schools began to be set up, as in 1831 the Bishopric opened a school for muralists and icon painters, led by Nicolae Teodorescu and attended by Gheorghe Tattarescu. One year later, the National School (the first school in Buzău to teach in the Romanian language) was open, and in 1838 Şcoala Normală (a school for teachers) was inaugurated by Dionisie Romano. Şcoala normală trained teachers for the city schools and for 115 villages. The Buzău theological seminar was open in 1836. It was the first secondary school in Buzău and the second theological school in Wallachia, after the one in Bucharest.

The oldest known census in Buzău showed, in 1832, a total population of 2567, of which one was Austrian, one was English, 18 were Jewish and the rest Romanian.

Around 1837-1840, public lighting was introduced on the main street. The street lamps were using tallow candles. By 1861, the number of public street lamps grew from 38 to 50. In 1841 the streets were realigned "by urban rules".^[13]

By 1842, the city had a stable doctor, a drugstore, a fire squad and an officially authorized midwife.

During the Wallachian revolution of 1848, a "National Guard", supervised by Barbu and Nicolae Bălcescu was set up immediately after the government was organized in Bucharest in June. However, the revolution was crushed by Russian and Ottoman forces, and Buzău was occupied by the Russian army for three years. The Russian army briefly occupied Buzău again in 1853 during the Crimean War. After the occupation ended, the city's development was resumed.^[14]

At the Ad-hoc divans organized after the Congress of Paris in 1856, a large majority of representatives of Buzău voted for Wallachia's union with Moldova. Later on, after a personal union was completed on 5 February 1859, Prince Alexandru Ioan Cuza was welcomed enthusiastically by the inhabitants of Buzău and was persuaded to spend the night in the city on his way from Iaşi to Bucharest. The newly-elected Domn of both Wallachia and Moldova left the city the next day via Strada Mare, a street known today by the name of Bulevardul Unirii (Union Boulevard).^[15]

The buildings on the Cuza Vodă Street (at the time known as Strada Târgului -- Market Street) were erected between 1850 and 1880 in the style of the 19th century South-Eastern European commercial houses—two-story buildings with shops on the ground floor, and residences on the top floor.

Cultural life blossomed, as in 1852, the first theater show in Buzău took place. In 1854, a printing press was imported by the Bishopric from Vienna, and was subsequently used to print the Buzău Bible, the fourth Romanian bible (the first three being the Bucharest Bible in 1688, one printed in Blaj in 1792 and another printed in Saint Petersburg in 1819).

Public lighting was enhanced in 1860 by introducing petrol lamps. In the same year, street numbers were assigned to houses, and streets were paved with stones. The Gârlaşi Hospital (nowadays, the Infectious Diseases Hospital) was open in 1865, being the first permanent city hospital.

The Moldavia theater was open in 1898 in a building in central Buzău. The 400 seats hall was the location where important Romanian artists that came to Buzău, such as Nicolae Leonard, Constantin Nottara and George Enescu performed.

The obelisk in Crâng Park

In 1899, mayor Nicu Constantinescu began the construction of the Communal Palace, a project completed in 1903. The Communal Palace is now the city's most prominent landmark. Constantinescu also decided to refactor the central streets of Buzău, which were narrow and winding, an heritage of the market town history and the repeated destructions followed by disorganized rebuilding of the city. Thus, the wide and straight Park Boulevard (linking the city center and the Crâng Park) and the Railway Station Boulevard (linking the center to the railway station) were built.

During this period, Constantin Brâncuşi and Ion Luca Caragiale were briefly residents of Buzău. Caragiale leased a restaurant near the railway station in 1894 and lived there for a year. During this period, he also held a public conference, whose intended subject, Prose writing techniques was changed at the last moment into Causes of human stupidity.^[16] Brâncuşi lived in the city in the summer of 1914, after Eliza Seceleanu, a young local landowner's widow, had commissioned him to create two sculptures: Prayer and the bust of Petre Stănescu, her late husband. After creating the two sculptures in Paris, Brâncuşi brought them to Buzău and lived there for a few months while working to prepare the sculptures' stands. Both sculptures decorated Stănescu's tomb at the local Dumbrava cemetery for a while, but they were since moved to the National Museum of Art of Romania in Bucharest, being replaced by two copies.^[17] The copies have been stolen in 1999 and have not been replaced since.

The first electric light bulb in the city was installed in 1899, in front of the public garden in the center of Buzău. The first cinema show in Buzău took place in 1904, in a beer pub on the Park Boulevard, by a local named Nicolae Mihăilescu.^[18]

The World Wars and the interbellum[link]

During World War I, the city was occupied, from 14 December 1916 to 14 November 1918, by German forces, and many of the inhabitants took refuge in Moldavia or in the country side. Buzău returned to Romanian administration at the end of the war.

After 1918, Buzău continued to develop, slowly becoming an industrial center. Also, a football team, named Vârtejul was created in 1921, and the first boxing match in Buzău took place in 1931, when a sports newspaper was first printed.

The most important mayor of Buzău between the two world wars was Stan Săraru, who erected in 1935 a modern food market, which nowadays is the most important market in the city and is named the Stan Săraru market. He also started the construction of the Crâng Stadium, and a public bathhouse and paved the main streets with cobblestone.^[19]

An eagle, nicknamed Ilie by the locals and raised by a salesman who lived nearby was the railway station's mascot between 1930 and 1943. Ilie came to the train station often, and ate out of people's hands. The eagle died during World War II, shot by Nazi soldiers. A beer brewed in Buzău was named Vulturul (The eagle), and a street in Buzău was named Strada Vulturului (Eagle street) in his memory.^[20]

Soviet soldiers' monument at the Buzău Heroes Cemetery

During World War II, Soviet troops occupied Buzău in August 1944, and, as German soldiers were barricaded inside the Communal Palace, its tower was knocked down by cannons. The tower was rebuilt after the war. Heavy fighting took place in the area after August 23, 1944, when Marshal Ion Antonescu was arrested in Bucharest and his pro-Nazi government overthrown. The Heroes' Cemetery, which lies in the western part of the city, is the burial ground of the Soviet, German, and Romanian soldiers who died at that time.

The communist period[link]

After the war, when Romanian government was taken over by a communist regime, Buzău lost its county seat status in 1952, being included in the Ploieşti Region. Then Buzău county was later reinstated in 1968.

All the factories in Buzău were nationalized and the central government in Bucharest ran a policy of building monotonous and drab blocks of flats. Consequently, some old neighborhoods in Buzău were demolished to make way for the new buildings. Before 1953, the residential areas were exclusively made up of houses, but many of them were razed to build blocks of flats. The process was slow at first, but between 1980 and 1988, all the houses on the main street of the city were demolished and blocks of flats were built. During that time, many historic buildings were destroyed, such as the Moldavia theater. Of the historic city center, only the Cuza Vodă street buildings escaped demolition. Also, in 1969, a residential area was built into the Crâng Park, reducing its size. This development was sometimes chaotic, as it happened in 1985, when the new Unirii Boulevard was rerouted by mayor Dochia who ordered that the foundations of some blocks that were being built be buried during one night and the street to run over the covered foundations.^[21]

The marble patterns on the Dacia square, similar to traditional costumes from Bisoca

Forced industrialization took place during the communist regime, as the Buzău-South industrial platform was inaugurated in 1963. The location was chosen as to use some barren land and to have the local winds move the pollution away from the city.

However, some city improvements have also been made during this period. The Tineretului Park was built in the Eastern side of the city, with a sports hall and a swimming pool.^[21] In 1981, a movie theater with 650 seats was open, and a major hospital was built in 1971-1973.^[22] In 1976, the city celebrated 1,600 years since its oldest historical attestation. To mark the event, an obelisk was erected in Crâng Park. In the same year, the Dacia square, the city's main square located in front of the Communal Palace, was repaved, with white, red and grey Măgura marble, with patterns similar to those on traditional folk costumes from the Bisoca area.^[23]

Post-communism (1990-present day)[link]

The process of demolition of homes was stopped after the fall of Communism in Romania, in late December 1989. The city's economy stagnated for some years, but Buzău slowly started to develop, as state-owned factories were privatized and some new industries emerged.

Construction work for an Orthodox cathedral, called the St. Sava Cathedral, was started in 1991. In 1995, a theater was opened once again in Buzău, and called the George Ciprian Theater.

Economy[link]

During the Middle Ages, Buzău's economy was centered on trade, as this market town was a customs point, taking advantage of its position at the Carpathians' curvature, at a point where roads that linked Wallachia, Moldavia and Transylvania met.

As a consequence of the agricultural reform that took place during the reign of Alexander John Cuza in 1897 and 1898, the Bulgarian gardeners rented some land that the state had taken over from the bishopric. They developed a distribution network for their products in Buzău, as well as in the nearby cities Braşov, Ploieşti and Râmnicu Sărat. Their activity became more successful after some of them took over ownership of their land after a second land reform in 1921.^[24]

After the destruction period had ended, the economical development took on an industrial component. Towards the end of the 19th century, the development of the Romanian railway network, in which Buzău was an important hub, gave a strong momentum to the evolution from small workshops to full scale industrial plants. The first industrial facility was the Garoflid mill, open in 1883, which also functioned as a textile factory.^[25] In 1894, the Saturn society opened an oil refinery, which functioned for fifty years.

After a severe national-wide drop of the industrial production level, caused by World War I (the 1919 total production was merely a quarter of the 1913 production^[25]), industrial development accelerated again during the interbellum. The baking industry was an important part of the local economy. The first industrial mill in the city, Garoflid, renamed Zangopol after its new owned, managed to have a capital of 5 million lei in 1928, and 30 million lei in 1938, and the society that managed the mill had about 100 employees.^[26] Another important business that started at this time was the Metalurgica şi Turnătorie – S.A. (Metallurgica and Metal Casting) factory, founded in 1928 with a capital of over 9 million lei. Although it had to overcom several difficulties at the beginning, being closed during the Great Crisis, it reopened in 1933.

After World War II, the establishment of the Communist government, and the nationalization decision of 11 June 1948 all companies in Buzău became state property. Also, the Communist government began implementing forced industrialization, some of the industries that developed in Buzău during the Communist rule being unsuitable for the location.^[27] In 1965 the industrial platform Buzău South was inaugurated, on 318 ha of land, in the area where the Saturn refinery previously had existed, before being blown up during World War II. The most important factories in Buzău, created or enhanced at this time, are located in the Buzău South industrial zone: The Steel Wire and Steel Wire-by Products (renamed Ductil after 1990), The Railway Equipment Factory (after 1990, Apcarom), Metalurgica (founded in 1928), The Glass Factory(after 1991, Gerom S.A.[1]).

The Contactors Factory in Buzău

Other industrial state enterprises opened in Buzău in other parts of the city. Thus, The Contactors Factory is located in the north-western part of the city and the plastic factory (after 1990, Romcarbon S.A.) is located in the north side.

In spite of the forced industrialization process, Buzău was not based on solely one leading industry, as it happened in other Romanian cities, and there was no single factory on which the entire city economy depended. According to a new law of commercial societies, adopted 1990, after the fall of the Communist regime, the factories in the city reorganized as joint stock companies. Only some of the companies failed to become competitive on a market economy and were closed during the transition process, many others, after reorganizing, became functional businesses.

The largest Buzău-based company is the Romet holding, with Romanian capital, made up of several companies that produce isolation material for water and gas pipes, water purifiers, fire-extinguishers and other such products. The company became successful during the 1990s, by selling its Aquator water purifier. In 1999, this group acquired Aromet S.A., company which managed the Metalurgica factory, founded in 1928.^[28]

The Ductil steel wire factory

Other companies in Buzău were privatized by programs supervised by the World Bank. Apcarom S.A., the only Romanian producer of railway equipment,^[29] was taken over by the Austrian company VAE, and had, as of 2008^[update] a social capital of 7.38 milloan lei.^[30] Ductil S.A. [2], one of the largest businesses in Buzău, was privatized in 1999 and subsequently diveded by the new majority shareholder, FRO Spa, which kept only the electrods and welding equipment section and sold the other departments. The section that produces steel wire and steel wire products, steel nets and concrete became Ductil Steel S.A.[3] and is now part of the portfolio of the Italian company Sidersipe.^[31] The iron powder section was renamed Ductil Iron Powder. In 2007, FRO Spa sold their majority shares of Ductil S.A. to the Russian Mechel company, for 90 million euros.^[32]Zahărul S.A., the local sugar producer, was acquired by the Agrana România Austrian capital group, which owns other sugar factories in Roman and Ţăndărei.^[33]

The baking industry still plays an important role in the local economy. The largest producer on this market in Buzău is Boromir Prod, whose majority shareholder is the Boromir Ind group of Râmnicu Vâlcea.^[34]

Transport[link]

The main railway station in Buzău

City bus on route 1, near the Buzău railway station

Rail[link]

Buzău is an important regional railway hub, as railroads connecting Bucharest and Ploieşti to Focşani, Galaţi and Constanţa meet in the city. The main railway station was inaugurated in 1872, together with the Bucharest-Galaţi railroad.

A branch of that railroad, running from Buzău to Mărăşeşti was open a few years later, on 13 June 1881,^[35] becoming the first railroad designed by Romanian engineers.

The Buzău-Nehoiaşu commuter railway line, open in 1908, links Buzău to most communes on the Buzău River valley, including the towns of Nehoiu and Pătârlagele.

Road[link]

Buzău is reachable by road via DN2 (E85) from Bucharest and the main cities from Moldavia. DN1B connects Buzău to Ploieşti and DN10 crosses the Carpathian Mountains at their curvature through the Buzău Pass to Braşov. Galaţi and Brăila can be reached via DN2B.

Two inter-city bus stations, one located in the north of the city, the other in the south, near the railway station, are in use for private passenger transport companies who provide coach connections to other cities or run commuter lines with nearby communes.

Air[link]

The closest airport to Buzău is Henri Coandă International Airport, in Otopeni, 110 km away.

Public transportation[link]

Buzău's public transportation includes 10 regular bus lines, connecting the residential areas to the main industrial zones (including the Buzău Sud platform), city center and railway station. Several taxi companies are licensed and operate throughout the city and the nearby communes.

Politics[link]

The mayor of Buzău is Constantin Boşcodeală (since 1996).

The local council is made up of 25 councillors, and has the following party composition:

Education and culture[link]

The Vasile Voiculescu memorial county library in Buzău

The first school in Buzău was the school for church and icon painters, opened by Chesarie, the bishop of Buzău. The school functioned at the bishopric of Buzău, and was managed by Nicolae Teodorescu. Gheorghe Tattarescu started learning painting here.

The city's most important educational landmark is the Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu National College, attended by the Nobel prize winner George Emil Palade in his youth. The Hasdeu high school was inaugurated in 1867.

The city's public library was opened in 1893, under the name of Carol I Public Library. Later it took the name of Vasile Voiculescu, Buzău's most prominent author, writer, and poet.

The George Ciprian stage theatre was created in 1996. It does not have an acting crew of its own, relying on contracts. Its first manager was playwright Paul Ioachim.

The first university in the city was the Economic University College, inaugurated in 1992, a branch of the Academy of Economic Studies in Bucharest.

The main museum in Buzău is the Buzău County Museum, which exhibits items related to the region's history. The same museum oversees the ethnography exhibition at the Vergu-Mănăilă House, as well as the Amber Museum in Colţi and the Vasile Voiculescu Memorial House in Pârscov.

Buzău natives[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Buzău

• Vasile Voiculescu, poet, writer, playwright
• Vasile Cârlova, poet
• Alexandru Marghiloman, statesman, Prime Minister of Romania
• George Ciprian, actor, playwright
• Mihaela Runceanu, pop singer
• Ion Băieşu, playwright
• Constantin Budeanu, electrical engineer
• Constantin C. Giurescu, historian
• Paul Ioachim, Actor, playwright
• Radu G. Vlădescu, professor at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Agronomical Sciences and Veterinary Medicine, Bucharest, member of the Romanian Academy and correspondent member of the French Academy
• Ştefan Guşă, Romanian Army general

Prominent mayors[link]

• Nicu Constantinescu
• Stan Săraru

Sister cities[link]

Buzău is twinned with:

• Oudenaarde, Belgium, since 1999
• Agios Dimitrios, Greece, since 2006

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Petcu, Gheorghe; Constantin Stan, Doina Ciobanu, Constanţa Tănase, Doina Filoti (2002) (in Romanian). Municipiul Buzău. Monografie. Buzău: Editura Alpha. ISBN 73-8054-59-1. 
• Ştefan, Corneliu (1985) (in Romanian). La noapte, Cotidianul. Bucharest: Editura Eminescu. 

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Buzău

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Mihai Eminescu
Born	(1850-01-15)January 15, 1850 Botoşani, Moldavia
Died	June 15, 1889(1889-06-15) (aged 39) Bucharest, Romania
Occupation	poet
Genres	Romanticism
Notable work(s)	"Luceafărul", "Scrisoarea III", "Făt-Frumos din lacrimă"
Influences William Shakespeare, German Romanticism, Idealist Philosophy, Arthur Schopenhauer, Romanian folklore, Vedas, Orthodox Christianity
Influenced All subsequent Romanian literature

Mihai Eminescu (Romanian pronunciation: [miˈhaj emiˈnesku]; born Mihail Eminovici; January 15, 1850 – June 15, 1889) was a poet, novelist and journalist, often regarded as the most famous and influential Romanian poet.^[1] Eminescu was an active member of the Junimea literary society and he worked as an editor for the newspaper Timpul ("The Time"), the official newspaper of the Conservative Party (1880–1918).^[2] His poetry was first published when he was 16 and he went to Vienna to study when he was 19. The poet's Manuscripts, containing 46 volumes and approximately 14,000 pages, were offered by Titu Maiorescu as a gift to the Romanian Academy during the meeting that was held on January 25, 1902.^[3] Notable works include Luceafărul ("Evening Star"), Odă în metru antic (Ode in Ancient Meter), and the five Letters (Epistles/Satires). In his poems he frequently used metaphysical, mythological and historical subjects. In general his work was influenced by the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer.

Life[link]

Family[link]

Family

Mihai Eminescu statue, Copou Park

His father was Gheorghe Eminovici from Călineşti, a Romanian village in Suceava county, Bucovina, which was then part of the Austrian Empire (while his father came from Banat). He crossed the border into Moldavia, settling in Ipoteşti, near the town of Botoşani. He married Raluca Iuraşcu, an heiress of an old aristocratic Moldavian family. In a register of the members of Junimea, Eminescu himself wrote down the date of his birth as December 22, 1849 and in the documents of the Gymnasium from Cernăuţi, where Eminescu studied, the date of December 14, 1849 is written down as his birthday. Nevertheless, Titu Maiorescu, in his work Eminescu and His Poems (1889) quoted N. D. Giurescu's researches and adopted his conclusion regarding the date and place of Mihai Eminescu's birth, as being January 15, 1850, in Botoşani. This date resulted from several sources, amongst which there was a file of notes on christenings from the archives of the Uspenia (Domnească) Church of Botoşani; inside this file, the date of birth was „January 15, 1850” and the date of christening was the 21st, of the same month. The date of his birth was confirmed by the poet's elder sister, Aglae Drogli, who affirmed that the place of birth was the village of Ipoteşti.^[4]

Early years[link]

Mihail (as he appears in baptismal records) or Mihai (the more common form that he used) was born in Botoşani, Moldavia, Romania. He spent his early childhood in Botoşani and Ipoteşti, in his parents' family home. From 1858 to 1866 he attended school in Cernăuţi. He finished 4th grade as the 5th of 82 students, after which he attended two years of gymnasium.

The first evidence of Eminescu as a writer is in 1866. In January of that year Romanian teacher Aron Pumnul died and his students in Cernăuţi published a pamphlet, Lăcrămioarele învăţăceilor gimnaziaşti (Tears of the Gymnasium Students) in which a poem entitled La mormântul lui Aron Pumnul (At the Grave of Aron Pumnul) appears, signed "M. Eminovici". On February 25 his poem De-aş avea (If I were to have) was published in Iosif Vulcan's literary magazine Familia in Pest. This began a steady series of published poems (and the occasional translation from German). Also, it was Iosif Vulcan, who disliked the Slavic source suffix "-ici" of the young poet's last name, that chose for him the more apparent Romanian "nom de plume" Mihai Eminescu.

In 1867 he joined the troupe of Iorgu Caragiale as clerk and prompter; the next year he transferred to the troupe of Mihai Pascaly. Both of these were among the leading Romanian theatrical troupes of their day, the latter including Matei Millo and Fanny Tardini-Vlădicescu. He soon settled in Bucharest, where at the end of November he became a clerk and copyist for the National Theater. Through this period, he continued to write and publish poems. He also paid his rent by translating hundreds of pages of a book by Heinrich Theodor Rotscher, although this never resulted in a completed work. Also at this time he began his novel Geniu pustiu (Wasted Genius), published posthumously in 1904 in an unfinished form.

On April 1, 1869 he was a co-founder of the "Orient" literary circle, whose interests included the gathering of Romanian folklore, and documents relating to Romanian literary history. On June 29, various members of the "Orient" group were commissioned to go to different provinces. Eminescu was assigned Moldavia. That summer, he quite by chance ran into his brother Iorgu, a military officer, in Cişmigiu Gardens, but firmly rebuffed Iorgu's attempt to get him to renew ties to his family.

Still in summer 1869, he left Pascaly's troupe and traveled to Cernăuţi and Iaşi. He renewed ties to his family; his father promised him a regular allowance to pursue studies in Vienna in the fall. As always, he continued to write and publish poetry; notably, on the occasion of the death of the former ruler of Wallachia, Barbu Dimitrie Ştirbei, he published a leaflet, La moartea principelui Ştirbei.

[edit] Junimea

The University's Central Library "Mihai Eminescu", Iaşi

Eminescu's signature

From October 1869 to 1872 he studied in Vienna. He was counted as an "extraordinary auditor" at the Faculty of Philosophy and Law. He was active in student life, befriended Ioan Slavici, and came to know Vienna through Veronica Micle; he became a contributor to Convorbiri literare (Literary Conversations), edited by Junimea (The Youth). The leaders of this cultural organisation, Petre P. Carp, Vasile Pogor, Theodor Rosetti, Iacob Negruzzi and Titu Maiorescu, exercised their political and cultural influence over Eminescu for the rest of his life. Impressed by one of Eminescu's poems, Venere şi Madonă (Venus and Madonna), Iacob Negruzzi, the editor of Convorbiri literare, traveled to Vienna to meet him. Negruzzi would later write how he could pick Eminescu out of a crowd of young people in a Viennese café by his "romantic" appearance: long hair and gaze lost in thoughts.

In 1870 Eminescu wrote three articles under the pseudonym "Varro" in Federaţiunea in Pest, on the situation of Romanians and other minorities in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He then became a journalist for the newspaper Albina (The Bee) in Pest. From 1872 to 1874 he continued as a student in Berlin, thanks to a stipend offered by Junimea.

From 1874 to 1877 he worked as director of the Central Library in Iaşi, substitute teacher, school inspector for the counties of Iaşi and Vaslui, and editor of the newspaper Curierul de Iaşi (The Courier of Iaşi), all thanks to his friendship with Titu Maiorescu, the leader of Junimea and rector of the University of Iaşi. He continued to publish in Convorbiri literare. He became a good friend of Ion Creangă, whom he convinced to become a writer and introduced to the Junimea literary club.

In 1877 he moved to Bucharest, where until 1883 he was first journalist, then (1880) editor-in-chief of the newspaper Timpul (The Time). During this time he wrote Scrisorile, Luceafărul, Odă în metru antic etc. Most of his notable editorial pieces belong to this period, when Romania was fighting the Ottoman Empire in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878 and throughout the diplomatic race that eventually brought about the international recognition of Romanian independence, but under the condition of bestowing Romanian citizenship to all subjects of Jewish faith. Eminescu opposed this and another clause of the Treaty of Berlin: Romania's having to give southern Bessarabia to Russia in exchange for Northern Dobrudja, a former Ottoman province on the Black Sea.

In June 1883, the poet fell seriously ill, and was interned in the hospital of Dr. Şuţu. In December 1883, his volume Poesii appeared, with selection of poems and with a preface by Titu Maiorescu.

Later life[link]

In his last years, Mihai Eminescu has been diagnosed at the time as suffering from manic-depressive psychosis^{[citation needed]}.

Works[link]

Nicolae Iorga, the Romanian historian, considers Eminescu the godfather of the modern Romanian language. He is unanimously celebrated as the greatest and most representative Romanian poet.

Poems and Prose of Mihai Eminescu (editor: Kurt W. Treptow, publisher: The Center for Romanian Studies, Iaşi, Oxford, and Portland, 2000, ISBN 973-9432-10-7) contains a selection of English-language renditions of Eminescu's poems and prose.

Poetry[link]

His poems span a large range of themes, from nature and love to hate and social commentary. His childhood years were evoked in his later poetry with deep nostalgia.

Eminescu was influenced by the work of Arthur Schopenhauer, and some^[who?] have suggested that his most notable poem, "Luceafărul", includes elements of Vedic cosmogony. Eminescu's poems have been translated in over 60 languages. His life, work and poetry strongly influenced the Romanian culture and his poems are widely studied in Romanian public schools.

His most notable poems are:^[5]

• Doina (the name is a traditional type of Romanian song), 1884
• Lacul (The Lake), 1876
• Luceafărul (The Evening Star), 1884
• Floare albastră (Blue Flower), 1884
• Dorinţa (Desire), 1884
• Sara pe deal (Evening on the Hill), 1885
• O, rămii (Oh, Linger On), 1884
• Epigonii (Epigones), 1884
• Scrisori (Letters or "Epistles-Satires")
• Şi dacă (And if...), 1883
• Odă (în metru antic) (Ode (in Ancient Meter), 1883
• Mai am un singur dor (I Have Yet One Desire),1883
• La Steaua (At Star),1886

Prose[link]

• Făt-Frumos din lacrimă (The Tear Drop Prince)
• Geniu pustiu (Empty Genius)
• Sărmanul Dionis (Wretched Dionis)
• Cezara (Caesara)

Romanian culture[link]

Genius[link]

Eminescu was only 20 when Titu Maiorescu, the top literary critic in 1870 Romania dubbed him "a real poet", in an essay where only a handful of the Romanian poets of the time were spared Maiorescu's harsh criticism. In the following decade, Eminescu's notability as a poet grew continually thanks to (1) the way he managed to enrich the literary language with words and phrases from all Romanian regions, from old texts, and with new words that he coined from his wide philosophical readings; (2) the use of bold metaphors, much too rare in earlier Romanian poetry; (3) last but not least, he was arguably the first Romanian writer who published in all Romanian provinces and was constantly interested in the problems of Romanians everywhere. He defined himself as a Romantic, in a poem addressed To My Critics (Criticilor mei), and this designation, his untimely death as well as his bohemian lifestyle (he never pursued a degree, a position, a wife or fortune) had him associated with the Romantic figure of the genius. As early as the late 1880s, Eminescu had a group of faithful followers. His 1883 poem Luceafărul was so notable that a new literary review took its name after it.

The most realistic psychological analysis of Eminescu was written by I.L. Caragiale, who, after the poet's death published three short care articles on this subject: In Nirvana, Irony and Two notes. Caragiale stated that Eminescu's characteristic feature was the fact that „he had an excessively unique nature”.^[6] Eminescu's life was a continuous oscillation between introvert and extrovert attitudes.^[7]

That's how I knew him back then, and that is how he remained until his last moments of well-being: cheerful and sad; sociable and crabbed; gentle and abrupt; he was thankful for everything and unhappy about some things; here he was as abstemious as a hermit, there he was ambitious to the pleasures of life; sometimes he ran away from people and then he looked for them; he was carefree as a Stoic and choleric as an edgy girl. Strange medley! – happy for an artist, unhappy for a man!

The portrait that Titu Maiorescu made in the study Eminescu and poems emphasizes Eminescu's introvert dominant traits. Titu Maiorescu promoted the image of a dreamer who was far away from reality, who did not suffer because of the material conditions that helived in, regardless of all the ironies and eulogies of his neighbour, his main characteristic was „abstract serenity”.^[8]

In reality, just as one can discover from his poems and letters and just as Caragiale remembered, Eminescu was seldom under the influence of boisterous subconscious motivations. Eminescu's life was but an overlap of different-sized cycles, made up of sudden bursts that were nurtured by dreams and crises due to the impact with reality. The cycles could last from a few hours or days to weeks or months, depending on the importance of events, or could even last longer, when they were linked to the events that significantly marked his life, as such was his relation with Veronica, his political activity during his years as a student, or the fact that he attended the gatherings at the Junimea society or the articles he published in the newspaper Timpul. He used to have a unique manner of describing his own crisis of jealousy.^[9]

You must know, Veronica, that as much as I love you, I sometimes hate you; I hate you without a reason, without a word, only because I imagine you laughing with someone else, and your laughter doesn't mean to him what it means to me and I feel I grow mad at the thought of somebody else touching you, when your body is exclusively and without impartasion to anyone. I sometimes hate you because I know you own all these allures that you charmed me with, I hate you when I suspect you might give away my fortune, my only fortune. I could only be happy beside you if we were far away from all the other people, somewhere, so that I didn't have to show you to anybody and I could be relaxed only if I could keep you locked up in a bird house in which only I could enter.

National poet[link]

He was soon proclaimed Romania's national poet, not because he wrote in an age of national revival, but rather because he was received as an author of paramount significance by Romanians in all provinces. Even today, he is considered the national poet of Romania, Moldova, and of the Romanians who live in the Ukrainian part of Bucovina.

Iconography[link]

Former 1000 lei banknote

500 lei banknote

Eminescu is omnipresent in present-day Romania. His statues are everywhere; his face was on the 1000-lei banknote issued in 1998 and is on the new 500-lei banknote issued in 2005 as the highest-denominated Romanian banknote (see Romanian leu); many schools and other institutions are named after him. The anniversaries of his birth and death are celebrated each year in many Romanian cities, and they became national celebrations in 1989 (the centennial of his death) and 2000 (150 years after his birth, proclaimed Eminescu's Year in Romania).

Several young Romanian writers provoked a huge scandal when they wrote about their demystified idea of Eminescu and went so far as to reject the "official" interpretation of his work.^[10]

International legacy[link]

A monument jointly dedicated to Eminescu and Allama Iqbal was erected in Islamabad, Pakistan on January 15th, 2004, commemorating strong Pakistani-Romanian ties, as well as the Dialogue Between Civilizations which is possible through the cross-cultural appreciation of their poetic legacies. In 2004, the Mihai Eminescu Statue was erected in Montreal, Canada.^[11]

Political views[link]

Due to his conservative nationalistic views, Eminescu was easily adopted as an icon by the Romanian right. A major obstacle to their fully embracing him was the fact he never identified himself as a Christian and his poetry rather indiscriminately uses Buddhist, Christian, agnostic, and atheist themes.

After a decade when Eminescu's works were criticized as "mystic" and "bourgeois", Romanian Communists ended up adopting Eminescu as the major Romanian poet. What opened the door for this thaw was the poem Împărat şi proletar (Emperor and proletarian) that Eminescu wrote under the influence of the 1870-1871 events in France, and which ended in a Schopenhauerian critique of human life. An expurgated version only showed the stanzas that could present Eminescu as a poet interested in the fate of proletarians.

See also[link]

• Literature of Romania

References[link]

Footnotes[link]

1. ^ Mihai Eminescu - accesat 11.01.09
2. ^ Mircea Mâciu dr., Nicolae C. Nicolescu, Valeriu Şuteu dr., Mic dicţionar enciclopedic, Ed. Stiinţifică şi enciclopedică, Bucureşti, 1986
3. ^ Biblioteca Academiei - Program de accesare digitala a manuscriselor - Mihai Eminescu - accesat 11.01.09
4. ^ Titu Maiorescu, Eminescu şi poeziile lui (1889) (secţiunea „Notă asupra zilei şi locului naşterii lui Eminescu”)
5. ^ Mihai Eminescu
6. ^ I.L. Caragiale, În Nirvana, în Ei l-au văzut pe Eminescu, Antologie de texte de Cristina Crăciun şi Victor Crăciun, Editura Dacia, Cluj-Napoca, 1989, pag. 148
7. ^ I.L. Caragiale,În Nirvana, în Ei l-au văzut pe Eminescu, Antologie de texte de Cristina Crăciun şi Victor Crăciun, Editura Dacia, Cluj-Napoca, 1989 pag. 147
8. ^ Titu Maiorescu, Critice, vol. II, Editura pentru literatură, Bucureşti, 1967, pag. 333
9. ^ Dulcea mea Doamnă / Eminul meu iubit. Corespondenţă inedită Mihai Eminescu – Veronica Micle, Editura POLIROM, 2000 pag. 157
10. ^ "Scandalul" Eminescu - G. Pruteanu
11. ^ Allama Iqbal and Mihai Eminescu: Dialogue between Civilizatioins

Notation[link]

• George Călinescu, La vie d'Eminescu, Bucarest: Univers, 1989, 439 p.
• Marin Bucur (ed.), Caietele Mihai Eminescu, Bucureşti, Editura Eminescu, 1972

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Mihai Eminescu

Romanian Wikisource has original text related to this article: Mihai Eminescu (original works in Romanian)

Spanish Wikisource has original text related to this article: Mihai Eminescu (original works in Spanish)

• Mihai Eminescu in the German National Library catalogue (German)
• Gabriel's Web Site - Works both in English and Original
• Romanian Poetry - Mihai Eminescu (english)
• Romanian Poetry - Mihai Eminescu (romanian)
• Institute for Cultural Memory: Mihai Eminescu - Poetry
• Mihai Eminescu Poesii (bilingual pages English Romanian)
• Mihai Eminescu poetry (with English translations of some of his poems)
• MoldData Literature
• Year 2000: "Mihai Eminescu Year" (includes bio, poems, critiques, etc.)
• The Mihai Eminescu Trust
• The Nation's Poet: A recent collection sparks debate over Romania's "national poet" by Emilia Stere
• Eminescu - a political victim : An interview with Nicolae Georgescu in Jurnalul National (in Romanian)
• Mihai Eminescu: Complete works (in Romanian)
• Mihai Eminescu : poezii biografie (in Romanian)
• The Mihai Eminescu Poems published in Revista Familia