The ‘Great Romanians Hall’ is an initiative of the National Atheneum in Iași to recall significant historical events of our people and to bring them to the public’s attention.
Inaugurated on the 1st of December 2019, on the Romanian National Holiday, by Her Royal Highness Princess Sofia and by the chairperson of the Romanian Academy, Professor Ph.D. Ioan-Aurel Pop, the ‘Great Romanians Hall’ displays a selection of documents, chancellery papers, photographs and original manuscripts bearing the signatures or having belonged to famous Romanians. The exhibition is open all year round. It may become itinerant for various major events.
In 2020, on the National Culture Holiday, the Great Romanians Hall exhibition was displayed in Paris. During events organized in partnership with the Romanian Orthodox Metropolitan Church of Western and Southern Europe, the ‘Coral of the Holy Archangels’ Choral in Paris and the ‘Mihai Eminescu’ Association in Vienna, the Romanian diaspora in the French capital had the opportunity to see original documents belonging to great Romanians who had had close ties with Paris.
Some of the public figures present at the opening were His Excellency Luca Nicolescu, the Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador of Romania to France, as well as His Eminence Father Joseph, Metropolitan of Western and Southern Europe.
The virtual tour of the Great Romanians Hall was inaugurated in May 2020. All the documents displayed in the Hall can be viewed, along with related explanations, on the institution’s website, at ateneuiasi.ro/smr.
‘We had this idea after several meetings with children, during which we would proudly tell them stories about our forefathers and they would look at us a little puzzled, not knowing who these forefathers were. Then we realized that we had a problem and we started to think of a place where we could gather objects or different documents, reminiscent of these valuable Romanians. Thus, we started visiting auction houses, various antique shops or art consignments, so that 3 years later we were able to inaugurate this beautiful hall. The exhibition is largely addressed to school students, who can thus learn, in a unique way, about valuable Romanians.’ – Andrei Apreotesei, Manager of the National Atheneum in Iași.