Urban image and national representation: Bucharest in the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century
1 Carol I of Romania (1839-1914) was Prince of Romania between 1866 and 1881 and King
between 1881 and 1914.
2 Anderson, Benedict: Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of
Nationalism, Verso, London&New York 2006.
3 Verdery, Katherine: The Political Lives of Dead Bodies: Reburial and Postsocialist Change,
Columbia University Press, New York 1999, 39.
4 The Statues to the Great Men (“statues des grands hommes”), as a typology which came
to being in the 19th century, represented personalities from various fields of arts, progress,
politics or military. The fact that a common man is worthy of being immortalized under
the form of a public statue, due to his personal merits, which are not inherited neither
canonized, is a consequence of the humanist, secular and liberal ideas, specific to that
period of time. The cult of the great men can be found within the spirit of the Illuminism
which entailed the improvement of man through education and in which the value of the
individual is equal to his achievements (see June Hargrove, 1989; Maurice Agulhon, 1978;
Ioana Beldiman, 2005).
5 Both words are of Turkish origin; in time, they changed their meanings.
Mahala was associated with the idea of neighbourhood. The whole city was formed from
the agglutination of these mahalas. Gradually, with the modernisation, the meaning of
the term transformed from its meaning of neighbourhood to the present meaning of peri-
feral, marginal area, having a rather negative connotation. The modernisation that started
from the centre was associated with the positive development, while the old structu-
re, that remained more present at the perifery, was associated with a negative image
(Majuru, Adrian: Bucureştii mahalalelor sau periferia ca mod de existență, ed. Compania,
Bucureşti 2003, 8).
Maidan was the public space that usually resultated at the intersections of roads, by their
enlargement. Like the whole urban structure, they did not have a regular form and had
diverse functions, being owned privately or publicly (Lascu, Nicolae: Bulevardele bucureş-
tene până la primul război mondial, ed. Simetria, Bucureşti 2011, 14).
6 The Organic Regulations (“Regulamentele Organice”), adopted in Wallachia in 1831 and in
Moldavia in 1832, were acts of a constitutional nature. They included different regulations
regarding the administration, state institutions, economy, infrastructure, army, etc. The
ones that were reffering to the city’s development imposed the establishment of the city’s
limits, decisions regarding the enlargement or closing of some roads and their pavement,
introducing the title of “town architect”, etc.
7 Lascu, Nicolae: Legislație şi dezvoltarea urbană. Bucureşti 1831-1952, doctoral thesis, Ed.
Universitară „Ion Mincu”, Bucureşti 1997, 108.
8 “în capitala noastră toate sunt de creat din nou” (Buletinul Municipal, II, 1860, nr. 18, 9
iulie, p. 71 apud Lascu, Nicolae: Bulevardele bucureştene până la primul război mondial,
ed. Simetria, Bucureşti 2011, 15).