About BRASOV

BRASOV IN middle and early age

The first organizations of Brasov city have their origins in the year 1450 B.C. and they are characterized mostly by houses, entrenched places, Dacian worship places, for instance those from Pietrele lui Solomon, Tampa Mountains, Valea Cetatii zone etc.

At Pietrele lui Solomon (Solomon's Stones), a big initiatory temple from the time of the great Zalmoxis, it was founded the Order of Necromancers (Ordinul Solomonarilor) ? an Order who had good acknowledge of astrology, numerology, herbal medicine etc, whose traditions are kept nowadays by those who are named: Junii Brasovului ? a tradition become legend.

The controversies over Zalmoxis'feature of god or man (in other versions Zamolxis) had started once with the first news about him (Herodot) and they are hardly ended. However, the variation of the modern interpretations, based on the ancient written information (for nobody has really scientifically researched yet the possible tracks of the Dacian mythology on the Romanian folklore and customs ? except Adrian Bucurescu in Dacia Secreta), is suggesting the complex character of the god. But first, on this character, can be seen two primarily features, which are difficult to separate them in the mythology: the messianic god and the hero. Closer looks remember us of a similarity from far away (being excluded any communication by the circulation of myths): Quetzalcoatl.

As a god, Zamolxis couldn't be venerated in the htonic rituals: from his early cave receding (which, in the light of the present archeological assumptions, it could be a bellow ground palace, perhaps with a secret exit) it doesn?t result neither his mystic death, nor his symbolic burying, and his return is not an osiriac resurrection, but his second coming.

Also as a god, Zamolxis couldn?t be venerated in staid of Gebeleizis, which he would have absorbed by syncretism, because Gebeleizis was the god of the atmospheric movements, to whose clouds they shouted volley of arrows, and that was easy to understand at a people sowing grains and grape; was however Zamolxis a god of the clear sky? Probably not or at least, not of the sky as a near canopy of heaven, but of a mystic sky, as a discreet headquarters, where were send the best young men as thrown in pikes deputations.

The phonetic comparisons with the name of the tracian goddess Zemelo, undoubtedly htonic, or with the name of the htonic Lithuanian god Zjameluks, don?t seem to be real.

As a hero, Zamolxis has some main features: the communication of at least two fundamental sciences for the antiquity, the astronomy and the medicine, propagated by him without an aspect of a miracle, so not on a divine way (like Apollo Medicus); moral education of people and its philosophical instruction; organization of a religious system, with a theological doctrine and sacerdotal investiture; the contribution (after some ancient authors, directly) to the political organization of the shepherded country, from which it didn?t miss the introduction of the feast habit with intellectual discussions (which results clearly from the text of Herodot).

No matter how regrettably they are, the gaps produced by the lost of some fundamental works (at least of the book assumed to be written by the emperor Traian), we can?t say that the documents penury is total: those who are help us to say that until Zalmoxis obtained the cult of a god, he had been venerated for a long time as a teacher and an archetype model.

Any attempt to synthesize the character of this complex enigmatical divinity will surely meet Zamolxis'oneness in universal pantheon; the rarely similarities are apparently and unmotivated structural coincidences. Named daimon by Herodot, divinized hero by Strabon, wise man and sole doctor by Platon, philosopher king by Iordanes in antiquity, then celestial god (V. Parvan, M. Eliade), sometimes even archetype saman (E.R.Dodds), in modern researches ? Zamolxis is above any essential symbol of the living way of a people: the early withdrawal of the god suggests the practice of some initiatory mysteries as the periodical sending of the deputation thrown in pikes and chosen from the best men confirms the perpetual integral ownership of the man to the cosmic substance.

The Brasov city is documentary certified only in 1234 in Ninivensis Catalogue with the title of Corona (from the city of the Crown of the Great Zamolxis). In the second half of the XIV century, it is confirmed as an ecclesiastic and administrative centre of the Tara Barsei (Corona, Kronstadt, Brasso), ?the royal free city?, one of the most important urban, cultural and economic centre of Transylvania. During the XIV century, the burg was concentrated near the main market and the St. Mary Church, known as Black Church rebuilt in 1383. From the first half of the XIV century there were already shaped two main streets: Platea Petri and Strada Portii. During the middle age, the inhabited area from the Fortress ended at Ulita Calugaritelor (Nuns? Alleyway) (today named Michael Weiss), the town being extended to 1500, to the fortification limit. The location was divided in four tax areas: Portica to the south-east, Corpus Christi to the south-west, Petri to the north-east and Catharina to the north-west. Outside the Fortress there were three suburbs. ?The old Brasov? was built surrounding the St. Bartholomew Church, including the location near St. Martin Hill. To the east side, Blumana district with the St. Barabara chapel was lived almost only by the Szekler peasants: there was also the leper house, documentary mentioned in 1413. To the east there is the old Romanian district Scheii Brasovului. The historical events outline the evolution of the fortress fortifications: in 1421, the town is devastated, the entire counsel being enslaved, and the 1432 Turkish foray couldn?t conquer it, for the defense system was strong enough to resist the sieges.

John of Hunedoara, the hospodar of Transylvania in 1441 and the governor of Hungary in 1446, had a substantial contribution to the development of the defense system, which is amplified in 1646. The fortification belt made Brasov one of the most indurate mediaeval towns from Transylvania. The defense system of the Fortress was completed with the Sraja Hill fort and with the four extra muros observation towers: Black Tower and White Tower; the other two towers being on the southern side, on the slope of the Tampa Mountain from the town and near the Weavers and Drapers Bastions.
Brasov during the Renaissance

"Those times Brasov is distinguished from the other towns by the cultivation of the sciences", noted the great Saxon humanist reformer Johannes Honterus (1498-1549) in 1548, within a letter addressed to Sebastian Munster, a teacher of The Basel University. The prestige of the school founded by Honterus in 1541 ? Studium Coronense - had enticed pupils from entire Transylvania. The urban houses of the patricians are reflecting the Renaissance style and almost all are built during the XIV century. The buildings belong to the central-European typology with the tight front to the street entirely occupied, deep advanced by successive adding of rooms and the access to the yard through the carriageable passage.

At the first floor there were gates with arches on the bold rocks stalls, pointed out by the restoration works at the House of Merchants or at the Closius ? Hiemesch ? Gisel. That age notes are talking about the front parts of the houses ?painted in chameleon colors?, and figurative paintings decorated even the indoor walls, the towers and the Fortress gates.
XVII century - the first half of the XIX century

Between 1639 and 1641, the fortifications of Brasov are increased on the northern side of the town with more lines of moated. The construction of the Goldsmith?s Bastion in 1646 ended the works to the defense system. In 1689, the most devastating fire from the history of Brasov had affected almost all the important buildings from the Fortress. The reconstruction of the town was difficult and the reconstruction of the destroyed buildings carries the new styles: baroque, rococo, and neoclassic. The most representative baroque building, St. Peter and Pavel Roman-Catholic Church, was built between 1776 and 1782. The mediaeval fortifications, become out-dated, are let dilapidated. Instead, the Straja Hil Citadel gained importance when its defense system was brought up to date by the imperials. In 1737 the Council Square (Piata Sfatului) was paved with stepping-stones. In 1736 a street to the Romanian Country was built through Timis canyon. During those times Brasov remained a town of handicraftsmen with over 1227 plants.

The end of the XVII century and the half of the next one represent also the prosperity of the Romanian trade in Brasov, developing the national intellectual emancipation movement with the climax in Transylvania within the 1848 events as a result of the abolition of the advantages of the Saxons by the Emperor Iosif II (1780-1790). The Fortress gates are opened to the Romanian merchants from Schei or from the Romanian Country as well as for the Greeks, Macedonians, Armenians or Jews.

Between 1784 and 1787 it was built the Greek Orthodox Church Sf. Treime, on the Baritiu Street from the rich donations of the Greek merchants and also those of the boyars Brancoveni, Vacaresti, Sutu, Mavrocordat from the Romanian Country, which were in exile in Brasov. In 1835, it was founded Romanian Casina as a meeting place for the merchants. Its members belong to the cultural and intellectual high society of Brasov, the founders of "Gazeta de Transilvania" ("The Newspaper of Transylvania") George Baritiu, Iacob and Andrei Muresianu. The prosperous Romanian merchants settled in the Fortress bought old houses of the Transylvanian Saxons or they built imposing residence in the age styles. That age dominant tendency in the architecture of Brasov was neoclassic.
The second half of the XIX century and the beginning of the XX century

The transformation from a mediaeval town in a modern town enforced the extend to the north-eastern sides (toward Old town and Blumana) and to the west (toward Schei), through the demolition of the entrenched belt of the town which started in 1857 (the gate of the Portii Street and the afferent fortifications), the gate of the Black Street (1873), the gate of the Horses Market (1874), Goldsmiths Bastion (1886). The old moated, ponds and plashes were filled, public buildings, schools and barracks were built, parks and promenades were arranged.

The oldest earthquake in Brasov is recorded in the Annals of the Melk Monastery form Austria: in august the 29th of 1473, at 11 o'clock, "there was an earthquake so big that almost all the houses and stove-pipes collapsed and even a great part of the town walls and many people thought that was the end of the world." "In November the 23rd of the 1516, at 13 o'clock, there was a terrible earthquake and many houses and some of the town walls collapsed."

Another earthquake of vast proportions was in 1521 in Romanian Country. In the following years were numerous earthquakes: 1523, 1531, 1543, 1545 and 1550. Mathias Miles said in his Siebenburgischer Wurg-Engel Chronicle (1670) that ?a strong and terrifying earthquake? took place. In Brasov it was so strong that the bells resounded in the towers and many houses and walls collapsed and the roof of the big church was cracked from the upper part to the bottom. Another forceful earthquake took place in November, the 8th of 1620, between the hours 13 and 14; ?then the Carpenters Tower and Turnul Burtnacilor as well as many churches from the villages were cracked?, and from the roof of the St. Nicholas Church form Scheii Brasovului fell three crosses. After 40 years later, another strong earthquake took place, on March, the 13th of 1660, between 15 and 16 o?clock, when the bell of the tower from the Gate Street started to toll alone. A big earthquake took place on November, the 10th of 1940. The "Kronstadter Zeinturg" Newspaper from November the 12th of 1940 called it "the most forceful earthquake from Brasov".