“Ioan Neculce” Bulletin

For Iasi, the past is a resource, and the history of these places gives you confidence in your choices and energy to achieve the goals you have set yourself. Over time, the scholars from Iasi contributed to the transformation of education into the binding link that spiritually and intellectually completed the political unification of the Romanian territories. Just one year after the Union of the Principalities, the first modern university in our country was founded here. You have remained a vector of transformation towards an education system adapted to the needs of the 21st century and I thank you, on this occasion, for your constant partnership in the Educated Romania project. For Iasi, being the historical capital does not mean looking back to the past with melancholy, but recharging its energies for its development as a national and European metropolis. Here, in Iași, at crucial moments in our modern history, decisions were taken that had the greatest influence on the existence and development of the whole of Romania. In the history of your city you can find manifestations of some of the most important aspirations of Romanians. Therefore, I wish you all, dear citizens of the “sweet fair of Ieșilor”, to enjoy the prestige of the historic capital for many years to come^!1

1 – Excerpt from the speech delivered on the occasion of the declaration of Iasi “Historical Capital of Romania”, January 23, 2019

The effort to renew a publishing tradition is to be appreciated at a time when the volume of the scientific press is being enriched with new titles every year. Also worthy of praise is the survival, the exit of a magazine from the wide circle of ephemeral publications and the entry among the few that prove vigor, value and continuity. Although we are in the age of information disseminated via the internet and social networks, we believe that a cultural institution still needs a printed publication, through which it can gain visibility and, above all, credibility for the value of the activities it carries out. These are just a few observations on the context that lead us to affirm that the issue of the periodical “Ioan Neculce. The “Regina Maria” Municipal Museum Bulletin is the completion of a project organized around a museum and cultural institution. As the series of numerous and diverse events that were organized on the initiative of the “Regina Maria” Municipal Museum between October 2018 and October 2019 shows, the publication of the magazine could not be delayed any longer, “Ioan Neculce” becoming both the place where to write the chronicle of the Museum, and especially the editorial space where to gather valuable scientific contributions to the knowledge of the past of Iasi and its surroundings. Therefore, the content of this first issue echoes the need to make the facts of the museum institution better known and prefigures a bold and long-lasting scientific program, that of bringing the history of Iaș back to the public eye, in a dialogue with the expectations of the public and with the challenges inherent to the current evolution of our city. Looking with justifiable hope at this beginning, we wish that the editorial road will be long and fruitful for the success of the cultural concept conceived around the “Regina Maria” Municipal Museum, with the support of the Iasi City Hall.

Ever since we took over the management of the institution, we have set ourselves the goal that the “Regina Maria” Municipal Museum should establish itself as soon as possible and firmly on the cultural and academic scene of Iasi. That is why we knew from the beginning that we would not limit ourselves to the appropriation of a name and the symbolic claim of a tradition and that we would, through the effort and dedication of the entire team, together with the growing number of collaborators and supporters that the museum has, build a visible bridge to the institution founded a century ago, on the initiative of Gheorghe Ghibănescu. Gradually, through the activities and projects it has set in motion, the “Regina Maria” Municipal Museum tends to share the same goal as its predecessor, namely the organization of representative museum spaces and the building of an academic environment aimed at discovering and highlighting the past of Iasi and the historical province of which it was the capital. Ioan Neculce periodical. The Bulletin of the Municipal Museum “Regina Maria” continues the symbolic legacy of the magazine founded in 1921, proving, issue by issue, from now on, that it will become the fertile ground where the concerns of historians, linguists, museographers and all those passionate about the history of Iasi will meet. The magazine is therefore the new challenge to which the Queen Mary Municipal Museum has dared to respond.