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This article aims to analyse several military plans and engravings found in the archives and libraries of Vienna, which illustrate and describe the phases of the battle that took place on 22 March 1788 near Botoșani town. The battle was fought between the Austrian troops, commanded by Colonel Michael von Fabri, and the Ottoman troops, commanded by Ibrahim Nazir Pasha. While the battle was not a significant event, its outcome had strategic consequences as it opened up new supply opportunities and hastened the defeat of the Turks at Hotin. The conflict has a particular resonance for the history of Moldavia and Botosani town, as it represents the first clash in the military campaign of 1788, which resulted in the occupation of the capital of Moldavia, the city of Iași, and a large part of this principality by Austrian and Russian troops. Apart from establishing the military context that led to the creation of the plans and engravings, this article also highlights other aspects obtained from the research of these sources. These include updating bibliographical references, completing technical details, identifying the authors, and analysing the topography of the area and the urban structure of Botoșani town. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By a law enacted in March 1833, new administrative institutions, called eforii (municipal councils), were established in the main towns of Moldavia. Members of these councils were to be elected by local boyars, merchants and heads of corporations. The stated intention of the legislator was to turn them into institutions of local self-government. Nevertheless, at least in the immediate aftermath of their founding, administrative reality turned out to be different: the situation of Iași, the capital of Moldavia is, in this respect, a compelling example. Provisions regarding the designation of council members were implemented in a rather “selective” manner; councillors were treated more like subordinates of the central government than as representatives of a separate institution; the capital police refused to fulfil its legal obligation to cooperate with the municipal council. The statement made by the councillors, less than a month after they were elected, regarding their responsibility towards the people of Iași and their (at least partial) autonomy towards the government remained, for the time being, only a declaration of principle. The development of the new institution was contingent upon the immediate priorities of the central government and upon formal and informal power hierarchies of the time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The subject of this article refers to a lesser-known cartographic source, regarding the most important city of Moldavia, Iaşi, and its neighboring area. The source is entitled Plan von der moldauischen Hauptstadt Jassy und ihrer Gegend [The Plan of Moldavian Capital Iaşi and its Surroundings] and probably was drawn by an Austrian staff officer in September 1788. The plan is owned by the Romanian Academy Library and has the dimensions of 405 x 476 mm and the scale 1 : 57 600. It is not very precise and detailed but provides valuable information on the geography, topography and toponymy of the area around the city of Iasi, from the end of the eighteenth century. The plan confirms a number of known historical and topographical information from narrative or other cartographic sources, such as Russian plans and estate plans, but it also presents some lesser-known details regarding changes to the hydrographic network, bridges and roads and, especially, about the position of the Austrian, Russian and Ottoman military units and camps in the vicinity of Iaşi, from the end of August and the beginning of September 1788. From this point of view, the plan is an additional proof regarding the strategic role that the city of Iaşi represented in the military operations carried out in this conflict zone, subsumed by the broader context of the Russian-Austro- Turkish War (1787--1792). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the adoption of the Organic Statute of Moldavia (1832), municipals councils were established in the main towns of the Principality. Alongside the elected municipal councillors, these new institutions also employed appointed bureaucrats: secretaries, clerks (in Iaşi and Galați) and a "special appointee" (in Iaşi only). In the present article, I aimed to reconstruct the profiles of the unelected civil servants employed by the Moldavian municipalities in the year 1834. To this end, I used the service records of these functionaries, preserved at the National Archives of Romania -- Iaşi County Directorate, along with other sources (edited or unpublished). This collective biography comprises information regarding: the birth places of the municipal council employees; their median age (in 1834 and at the time of their "debut" in public service); their education; the foreign languages they spoke; their marital status and property; their experience and continuity in state service; their social status (as defined by family and nobility rank). These data were compared to the findings regarding the biographies of the municipal councillors and of the Interior Ministry employees in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The supervision of pharmacists' training or of their activities, as well as the aspects related to the functioning and the endowment of the pharmacies, were among other main responsibilities of the physicians' that practiced in the cities of Moldavia in the first half of the 19th century. Consequently, I have considered it appropriate to accomplish a brief research on this subject which, as a whole, can be included in a larger research of what we could name, with some credit, the "professionalization" of the physicians' and pharmacists' activity by the middle of the 19th century. Therefore, I could notice, both from the stipulations comprised in the Organic Statute and as well as from the numerous documents of the time, the special attention paid to the good training of the pharmacists and the proper functioning of the pharmacies. The numerous inspections carried out through the counties by the department physicians or by the physicians who were part of the Commission of the Physicians, in the case of Iaşi, reveal positive aspects in general. For the specific cases, where improvements needed to be made, the physicians responsible for these inspections often suggested the necessary measures for enhancing the situation. Therefore, having as main aim outlining a group of well-trained and responsible pharmacists, the new regulations intended a better organization in terms of preparation and dispatch of treatments. The few documents that join this short text play the role of strengthening and completing the aspects only outlined within these pages of my article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article deals with economic and social relations between Lviv, as the largest Ukrainian cities in the Medieval Ages, and the towns of Moldavian principality. They were established primarily on economic grounds, as trade routes to the East passed through the principality. Lviv officials supported the political and diplomatic steps of the Kingdom of Poland towards rapprochement with the Principality of Moldavia. Economic relations developed especially intensively under Stephen the Great, prince of Moldavia in the second half of the 15th century, when the Turks captured the northern Black Sea coast with the main trading ports of Kaffa, Kilia, and Cetatea-Alba. In addition to the important function of ensuring the transit of oriental goods to the West, Moldavian merchants supplied the Lviv market with local goods. Lviv city books note large consignments of oxen and beluga fish among the main products of Moldavian exports. In exchange, Lviv merchants supplied the Moldavian market with large quantities of Western cloth, iron products, and dyes. The organization of trade processes was facilitated by the protectionist policy of the Moldavian prince, who granted a number of privileges to the city of Lviv. Strong trade and economic contacts arose due to the large diasporas of Armenian and German merchants that existed in Lviv and Suceava, Seret, and other Moldavian towns. Merchants' groups and companies arose among Armenians, Germans, Wallachians, and Ruthenians on both mononational and multinational grounds. Immigrants from the Moldavian principality settled in Lviv and the region; on the one hand, they provided stronger economic contacts, and on the other hand, they avoided the threatening Turkish expansion into Moldavian lands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study we set out to present an unknown map regarding the capital of the Principality of Moldavia, Iași city, and its surroundings from the middle of the 19th century. The map is entitled Jassi und Umgebung, it is provided by the Military Archives in Vienna (Kriegsarchive) and was created during the Austrian military occupation of Moldavia (1854-1857), during the Crimean War. The map points out yet again that, during that period, the Austrian army initiated geodetic activities in Moldavia, not only in Wallachia, as was known until now. Its realization was subordinated to an old political and military objective of the Habsburg monarchy for the exploration and mapping of its own territory but also of its political and economic influence areas located in the vicinity of its borders. For this reason, I briefly presented other military maps and plans regarding the Principality of Moldavia and the area of Iași in the 18th-19th centuries, highlighting the historical context in which the map was drawn in 1855. Given the above, I paid a special attention to the identification of the officers who made the map (Anton Krzisch, Eduard van der Schlott / Sloot, Gustav von Löw, Rudolf von Friess and Franz Matosović), whose military careers we reconstructed in order to understand, on the one hand, how and where they acquired the cartographic knowledge and skills and, on the other hand, if they also made other topographic works related to the Romanian Principalities. Due to its technical properties, dimensions (527 x 527 mm) and large scale (1 : 28 800), the map offers the most detailed and precise topographic perspective up to 1855 over an area of about 230 km², which includes the Iasi city, centrally located, and 25 villages around it. The map shows the geographic forms and land usage, roads, structure of localities and households, locations and structures of ecclesiastical (churches, monasteries, cemeteries) and economic (mills, taverns, fountains and aqueducts, bricks, slaughterhouse, telegraph) objectives, headquarters of some institutions, public and private gardens, residences of the social elite in Iași and in its vicinity, etc. Topographic information is important and consistent, which is why the map can be used as a source of documentation for research topics in various fields: history and archaeology, geography and cartography, urbanism, toponymy and others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Organic Statute of Moldavia (Regulamentul Organic al Moldovei) entered into force in 1832. Its adoption brought about important changes in the institutions of the Principality, the urban administration included. Municipalities would be governed by elected councils, under the close supervision of the Interior Ministry. This article presents the members of these town councils in 1834. Its main source is the general employee registry of the Moldavian Interior Ministry, kept at the National Archives of Romania -- Iași County Directorate. This registry contains 243 service records of the bureaucrats in the Interior Ministry, comprising data regarding their age, origin, education, wealth, marital and social status, as well as past public assignments. This kind of information -- along with data found in other archival and edited sources -- was the basis for the reconstitution of the Moldavian municipal councillors' collective biography, including: their birth places; their average age (in 1834 and upon joining the service); the foreign languages they spoke; their family and property; their experience and continuity in the public office. These findings were compared to the general situation of the officials in the Moldavian Interior Ministry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emergence of periodic fairs/markets -- that were supported by a protective legal regime during the 16th and 18th centuries -- in Wallachia and Moldova was demanded by the necessity of villages and cities to source products both locally and from foreign fairs through the aid of merchants. Fairs were often arranged around monasteries or princely courts in Wallachia. Permission to organize such fairs was conditioned by the ability to generate an advantageous profit and by their placement which had to be in the proximity of important commerce roads or large production centers and the organization had to be renewed annually by the ruler of the country. The 19th century brought novel economic and structural perspectives with regards to the development of cities. The supply and demand of products increased at the same rate as the city's population, bringing about an increased diversity in shops and markets as an attempt to solve the problem of stocking. Fairs continue to be organized because of the social and information-based functions that were complementary to its commercial component. The fair, as an organized space, polarized attention, submerging its participants within a strong, sensorial flux of information (olfactory, gustatory, etc.). It was a place of exchanges for those interested in understanding a particular area beyond its socio-geographical aspect, a place where economic, social, and artistic knowledge was perpetually disseminated. In this atmosphere of celebration, those who came to the fair noticed the existence of a reality that had previously been unknown to them. This alternate reality quickly adhered to the memory of visitors and was subsequently retold, upon returning home, under the generic phrase: "I saw [it] at the fair!". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the ballroom, the prince [vodă], wearing a white gown, a dagger with diamonds hanging at his waist, was sitting in the middle of the couch between the windows, leaning on the cushions, with his royal sable fur cap, with the white ribbon rather falling on his forehead, and with his hands clasped on his lap. On the side of the bed, on the right and on the left, were sitting, in a row, the prince's six sons, [surrounded by his relatives, various other guests, as well as by] several ladies from the high aristocracy. (Ghica 2002: 217). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study will deal with an important part of urban topography: the street. As elsewhere in the world, the function of streets in the Romanian Principalities was to allow communication between different parts of the town: between the residence of the prince and the rest of the city, between the central market and the outskirts, between districts, churches, bridges, etc. The first testimonies concerning these streets date back to the fifteenth century, but substantial data comes from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. A classification of urban streets would identify several such public ways: large and small streets, main and secondary streets. The former group carries an Old Slavonic name, uliță, whereas secondary roads have a diminutive name, ulicioară or, in Moldavia, hudiță. The streets in the towns of the Romanian Principalities were most often paved with wooden beams, hence the name of poduri (literally "bridges"). The introduction of the stone pavement is a modern achievement, specific to the first half of the nineteenth century. People have named streets without any specific rule in mind, based on age, local people or important monuments in the vicinity; some names lasted, while others were short-lived. No matter the name, the street is one of the most resilient elements in the urban landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research into the Military-Historical Archive in Moscow has allowed the discovery of new plans for the city of Iaşi, i.e. two versions of already known plans and two unknown plans. Comparative analysis led to the re-dating of one of the plans, which had not been drawn in 1790, as previously thought, but in 1770-1771, when General Rumyantsev, in charge of the Russian army involved in the Russo-Turkish War of 1768-1774, was stationed in Iasi with five regiments. This plan includes new information about the palace of the prince, the city's fountains and aqueducts, churches, houses, streets and bridges etc. Additional useful data is provided by a new version of the 1789 plan, but mostly by two unknown plans, both made during the Russian occupation of 1828-1834. The 1828 plan is special because it is the first to apply the Lehmann method of graphic representation by hatching (slope hachures), which is why its cartographic perspective is superior to that of the previous plans. This is also the most comprehensive plan so far, giving researchers a much wider perspective on the topography of the city and its surroundings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the first half of the 19th century, Iași, as the capital of Moldavia Principality, benefited from an urban modernization program promoted by the Organic Regulation. A particular attention was paid to the improvement of traffic conditions, which meant the systematization of the main streets (paving, lighting, street cleaning, demolition of improper buildings and outbuildings) and the introduction of first traffic rules. In this article I tried to highlight what were the dimensions and the technical status of the streets in Iași and what major traffic problems were faced the inhabitants, travellers and authorities during that time. Also, we tried to identify which were the most important traffic rules and laws, contained in the three main legislative sources of Principality: Regulamentul Organic [Organic Regulation] (1831/1835), Condica de poliție [Police rules] (1850) and Manualul Administrativ al Principatului Moldovei [The Principality of Moldavia's Administrative Book] (1855). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]