On Ruins in 19th Century Romania

The architectural ruin arose some interest among a narrow Romanian intellectual elite only after the beginning of the 19th century, and for more than a century it remained only a picturesque background for literary re*ections or a support for the admiration of an often-idealized past. Interest in the cultural value of architectural ruins, and consequently their conservation - especially the archaeological one - matured later, only in the second half of the 20th century, a shift driven by the research and practices conducted by the Direction of Historical Monuments.1Once the institution was abolished in the 1980s, these preoccupations declined, leading to a rise in amateurism and super(ciality, issues that continue to have a harmful impact to this day. #e essay attempts to capture some aspects of the journey of the architectural ruin in the Romanian culture during the early-modern period, until the (rst decades of the 20th century.#e earliest approaches to ruins - either ancient relics or medieval vestiges - took shape against the backdrop of late echoes of Western Romanticism and of an incipient, often mimetic, local taste for the picturesque. #e speci(c manners in which the architectural ruins were perceived, endowed with value and meaning or, conversely, sacri(ced, are di)cult to capture and categorize. #e generative reasons of the various signi(cant attitudes towards the ruins were diverse, amalgamated, and hard to identify, making them di)cult to trace in a linear chronological path. #erefore, the study proposes several "perspectives" through which the ruin in 19th century Romania can be discussed: as an object of literary re*ection, as a source of historical information, as a vehicle of memory and aesthetic appreciation, and as an instrument for political legitimacy.