The Memorial House ”Vasile Alecsandri”

Vasile Alecsandri (1818-1890), one of the patron figures of Iasi and Moldavia during the 19th
century, was a poet, playwright, publicist, folklorist, politician, minister, diplomat, revolutionist,
unionist, founding member of the ,,România literară” newspaper, of the Romanian Academy, alongside
with Mihail Kogălniceanu and Constantin Negruzzi, of the Junimea Cultural Society, father of the
Romanian theatre and dramatic literature.
The Museum ”Vasile Alecsandri” is hosted in his family’s mansion, in Mircești (Iasi county),
built between 1861 and 1867, following the poet’s plans and under the close surveilance of Paulina
Alexsandri, his wife.
The permanent exhibition hosts valuable pieces of original furniture, fine art images obtained
through printmaking, oil paintings, family photos, copies of manuscripts, letters, opera editions,
documents about the Revolution of 1848 and the Unification of the Romanian Principalities (1859),
about his diplomatic activity as a member of the Junimea Cultural Society, aspects regarding his
dramatic compositions and their transposition on stage, several objects with memorial value,
reproductions of the old mansion from Mircești, where he lived during his childhood and announced
from the balcony that the gypsies obtained manumission, another reproduction of the old Theater of Iași
that had Vasile Alecsandri as its prime-director, a tapestry work with a ”BA” monogram realised by
Queen Elisabeta, that was received as a gift from her, books, his personal travel trunk, the Turkish divan
that his friend Ion Ghica gave him.
The living room is dominated by an oval table, in Florentine style, with carved legs, the poet`s
bed and his wardrobe with a Venetian mirror, in which “the boyar” was grooming himself every morning
before going out; the wall pendulum is stopped at 8 pm, when Alecsandri passed into eternity.
Emma Paula Stanciu – LMA En-Ge III – Traduceri literare, 7.03.2018

The ”Ion Creangă” Museum (Bojdeuca)

The house from Țicău is the first Romanian literary memorial museum, opened on the 15th of
April 1918, and it represents the vivid memory of the one that Ion Creangă was. The modest little house
from Țicăul de Sus, No. 4, just like every other house on 19th century outskirts, included the basic
facilities for an everyday living, and it was to be the place of some great encounters of the Romanian
classical times. Composed by two short chambers, a porch and a wooden verandah, ”the hovelish tiny
house”1 (bojdeuca de căsuță) – as Creangă often liked to refer to it – borrows the writer`s spirit, who
lived and wrote here, during his last 18 years of life.
Mihai Eminescu lived here during the summer and autumn of 1876, but there are other big
figures of the time who had been here as well. This is the place where all Ion Creangă`s memorable
pages were born, pages that have been promoted by Titu Maiorescu, Mihai Eminescu, Vasile Alecsandri
and many other junimists who loved this great writer, before and after his death.
The objects the belonged to Creangă amplify the visitors` emotions: the small fir table (where
he wrote his tales and ”Childhood Memories”), a lamp with eight lights, the silver watch, the cigarette
case engraved with the ”I. Creangă” monogram, the pen and ink, as well as an icon with special
sentimental value, belonging to his grandfather from Pipirig, David Creangă, an original portrait
realised by the painter V. Mușnețanu.
The verandah from where Creangă and Eminescu used to watch Ciric and Șorogari hills, and
nonetheless ”the sky full of wonderful things”, recalls us the vibration of a beautiful friendship.

”Luxurious palaces, with marble halls, are built in the Capital and the other cities, but they will not
reveal the progress that we say we have made. Bojdeuca will remain our forever pride, because this is
the place where the parents of those with palaces had lived...”
Ion Simionescu
1
The floor was a mire of accumulations of manure and rotted bedding, and the low roof gave the place a hovelish
suggestion such as Bill could never have imagined in the breezy life of a rancher, as he understood it. There were
one or two other buildings of a similar nature.