Bucovina is one of the most attractive and visited touristy areas in Romania. No wonder this area (famous today all over the world) was given in 1975 the Pomme d'Or international prize by The International Federation of Travel Writers and Tourism Journalists. The century-old architecture monuments together with the frescos from this country spot were listed by UNESCO among all the universal art monuments.
Keeper of ancient civilization, where history and legend merge together, Suceava district holds evidences of man's presence from ancient times. The 96 incineration tombs found out at Zvoristea, as well as the archaeological discoveries in Silistea Scheii, Suceava, Bosanci and Dolhestii Mari, prove that Thracian–Geta and Dacian settlements existed there a long time ago.
The lands of Suceava represented the places where Moldavia became an independent and feudal state in the 14th century. Locations such as Baia, Siret, Suceava, Radauti still keep edifices (fortresses, church foundations, princely homes) dating the time of the first Moldavian voivods. Other localities, such as Putna, became a strong manifestation for Romanian people's sense for a united nation. To this common sense many important persons contributed: Mihai Eminescu, Mihai Slavici, Ciprian Porumbescu and some other young people that came here all over Romanian lands. This fact strongly expresses the active role the people from these lands have played along the history.
Woodworking is much appreciated in Bucovina, where the material is plentiful. It is used for most household objects, as well as building the houses. The different parts of the house are decorated with carvings, such as the pillars of the veranda or the farmyard gate. The dowry includes, apart from the trousseau of textiles, also carved wooden cups, spoons, barrels, ladles and pots.
An ancient occupation in the zone is the making of pottery. There are two well-known centers of workshops, Radauti and Marginea, but also Boroaia and Dolhesti are worth a mention. The potters of the Magopat family in Marginea and those of the Colibaba family in Radauti are famous everywhere for their skills.
Bucovina is one of the few regions where the tradition of painted Easter eggs is still alive. The biggest and hardest eggs are turned into real masterpieces of intricate patterns in green, red, blue, black and yellow. In Brodina, Izvoarele Sucevei, Sucevita, Breaza, Moldova Sulita and Ulma egg painting is one of the main occupations of women.
The impressive number of churches to be found in Bucovina, Romania, with their fine exterior and interior frescoes, have been preserved and handed down from mediaeval times, and because of their uniqueness and artistic value, were added to UNESCO’s World Cultural Heritage List in 1993. There is, indeed, no other place in the world where such a group of churches, with such high quality exterior frescoes, are to be seen.
The churches were founded, in most cases, as family burial places of princes and high nobles. Each painter, although following the canonical iconographic program, interpreted the scenes in a slightly different way. Using colors like the famous Voronet blue, the green-red of Sucevita, the yellow of Moldovita, the red of Humor and the green of Arbore, the painters (most of them unknown) described the biblical stories of the earth and heaven, scenes from the lives of the Holly Virgin and Jesus Christ, stories of man’s beginnings and of his life after death. The scenes were first painted on the interior walls, and then extended to the exterior ones. The reasons for such vast scenes were both religious and didactic: to promote Orthodoxy and to educate the illiterate.
VORONET
Year Built: 1488
Built by: Stephen the Great
Location: Voronet, Suceava County
The Church of St. George of the Voronet Monastery is possibly the most famous church of Romania. It is known throughout the world for its exterior frescoes of bright and intense colors, and for the hundreds of well-preserved figures placed against the renowned azurite background. The church of Voronet that Stephen the Great built included the chancel and the nave with its tower.
The monastery is located on a riverbank, at the end of the long and narrow village of the same name, near the town of Gura Humorului. The age of the monastic site is not known. A legend tells us that Stephen the Great, in a moment of crisis during a war against the Turks, came to Daniel the Hermit at his hermitage in Voronet and asked for advice. After he won the battle against the Turks, keeping his promise to the monk, the prince built a new church, dedicated to St. George, the bringer of victory in battle. This is the present church that was built on the site of an older wooden church, the scanty remains of which have not been dated. The renowned researcher George Bals wrote in the 1920’s that the churches of this period, and in part also those built in the following century, were “Byzantine churches built with Gothic hands”. The structure and the interior spatial solutions were linked to the Byzantine and south Slavic tradition.
The exterior, with its buttresses and door and window frames were related to Western European High Gothic. The influences spread from Transylvania and Poland with craftsmen who were invited especially to build churches.
The Church of St. George is dated with the commemorative inscription placed above the original entrance: “I, Prince Stephen, by God’s mercy leading the Country of Moldavia, son of Prince Bogdan, started to build this foundation at the Monastery of Voronet, dedicated to the Saint and Worshipped and Great Martyr and Victorious George, in the year 6996 (1488) the month of May, 26, the Monday after the Descent of the Holy Spirit, and completed it in the same year, in the month of September, 14”. The text shows that the church was built in less than four months. This tells us something about the high professional level of construction at the time, especially taking into account that the Church of St. Elijah in Suceava was built exactly at the same time.
SUCEVITA
Year Built: 1583
Built by: Ieremia, Simion and Gheorghe Movila
Location: Sucevita, Suceava County
This classic Moldavian church with its five rooms, shows the first new architectural tendencies: smaller niches, and three bases for the tower. The frescoes are very remarkable, colourful and well preserved.
Three Movila brothers built the Church of the Resurrection of Sucevita around 1583. The church is the only painted church that was not founded by a ruling prince, although the Movilas were descendants of Petru Rares on their mother’s side. Quite soon after the monastery was built Ieremia Movila became the ruler of Moldavia, and his brother Simion reined in Walachia. The third brother, Gheorghe, who was during that period the Bishop of Radauti, rose to become the Metropolitan of Moldavia.
The church was painted around 1595, nearly half a century after its “sister” churches. It is considered the last flowering of the custom of painting the church facades that mark the reigns of Stephen the Great and Petru Rares. Building and painting a church that closely resembled the edifices their ancestors raised decades before, was a way for the Movilas to claim to be part of the royal line of Stephen the Great.
At the same time, though, the monastic compound of Sucevita and its buildings herald the architectural innovations of the following century. The massive precinct walls were built after 1595, during the reign of Ieremia Movila. Each wall is nearly 100 metres long, three metres wide and more than six metres tall, and creates the atmosphere of a mediaeval fortress. The walls are strengthened with buttresses, bulwarks and imposing towers. Narrow loopholes in the upper part of the walls indicate that a defensive catwalk encircled the compound.
Each of the five towers has a different plan. The square gate tower with its pointed octagonal turret is in the middle of the north wall. A vaulted gateway, with heavy buttresses on either side, leads through to the compound. Above the arch of the gateway is a semicircular niche with a painting of The Resurrection and the carved coat of arms of Moldavia. Above the gateway, there are two storeys with rooms.
On the first floor is a small chapel dedicated to the Annunciation. The northwest tower is the bell tower of the monastery. It is the most massive one of them all, with three three-tiered buttresses on the outside. The buttresses were added later, as were the gate tower buttresses. On the ground floor is a small laboratory for the restoration of icons, where trained nuns work. On the top floor is the belfry with four big arched openings. The two bells that Ieremia Movila donated in 1605 are still used daily. The other three towers are octagonal but each different from the other: the northeast tower has three storeys, the southeast five and the southwest two.
A wooden glazed gallery was built on the north wall during the 19th century.The slender wooden turret has the date 1867 carved on it. The existing monastic buildings abut the east wall. The central part is original, and houses, besides the nuns’ cells, a museum with embroideries, manuscripts, religious objects and icons. The Church of the Resurrection, although still built on the model of the classic Moldavian church, shows the first new architectural tendencies.
The church has the five rooms of a large Moldavian monastery church: the chancel, naos, burial chamber, pronaos and exonarthex. On the apses are tall niches, but they no longer reach nearly to the eaves as before. The row of small niches that used to go around the church facades has been omitted. The tower is for the first time placed on three bases, a practice that was followed some years later in Dragomirna. On either side of the exonarthex are two small open porches of Walachian influence.
MOLDOVITA
Year Built: 1532
Built by: Prince Petru Rares
Location: Vatra Moldovitei, Suceava County
The most distinctive feature of the Church of the Annunciation is the open exonarthex with its three tall arches on the west facade. The exterior paintings are the best preserved of all the churches of Bucovina.
Alexander the Kind built the first monastery in Moldovita on the banks of the Moldovita River at the beginning of the 15th century. The site chosen was far from other villages, in the middle of the forest. He donated lands and Tartar slaves to the establishment, and the first community around the compound was created. The monastery is mentioned for the first time in a document of 1402, and successive other documents tell of new donations. There is no record of how, or when, the monastery was destroyed, but possibly an earthquake ruined it at the beginning of the 16th century. Only low stone ruins remain of the first church. It was built of rough blocks of stone on a triconch plan, with three apses. Originally, it had only a chancel, a nave and a narrow pro nave. When the monastic community increased in size, a second, much larger, pro nave was built to the west end of the edifice. As is the case with many other monasteries built during the first century of Moldavia’s existence, such as Probota and Humor, Moldovita was also re-founded by Petru Rares. The new church was built in 1532 in a different location, several hundred meters uphill from the river. Petru Rares founded the present Church of the Annunciation, as is confirmed by the commemorative inscription on the south facade of the church, to the left of the entrance. The church is built on the usual triconch plan of three apses used for all monastic establishments. The church is rather long, as it has, besides the obligatory chancel, nave and pro nave, a burial chamber and an exonarthex. A graceful octagonal lantern tower with four windows stands above the nave, and a hidden treasury room was built above the burial chamber. The open exonarthex with large openings is its most distinctive feature, built on the model of the Church of Humor.
The long facades are smooth; except for a row of small niches that surrounds the whole church. The three apses are decorated with tall niches that reach almost to the eaves. The four big pro nave windows have pointed Gothic arches and stone tracery in the upper part. The other five windows are much smaller, with slightly pointed arches and a square frame of crossed rods.
The church was painted in 1537 both inside and outside. The significant stylistic differences between various scenes indicate that there must have been several painters at work in Moldovita. In 1607 Bishop Efrem of Radauti built the solid precinct wall with three towers. The gate tower and the southeast corner tower are square, but the northeast corner tower is round. A vaulted gateway leads through the gate tower into the compound. The arch of the gateway is decorated with carved stone rosettes. In the northwest corner of the compound is a two-storey building, the former treasury house. Now the building is the monastery museum. The collection includes embroideries, icons, liturgical books, archaeological finds and the church seat of Petru Rares. The exterior painting of the Church of the Annunciation is the best preserved among all the painted churches of Bucovina. Especially on the south and east facades, there are paintings that have not been faded by the passage of time, and that are able to suggest how bright the decorated facades were during the reign of Prince Rares.
Just under the eaves are 105 niches, each painted with an angel. On the western pillar, just to the left of the entrance and the tall opening of the south facade, there are three Military Saints on prancing horses and with either a lance or a sword in hand. Farthest up is St. George, then St. Demetrius and St. Mercurius. On the south facade is the Akathistos Hymn as usual. The 24 stanzas of the Hymn cover four registers. First come the twelve historical stanzas that recount the birth of Christ: The Annunciation, The Conception, The Virgin Mary Meets St. Elizabeth, The Doubting of Joseph, The Birth of Christ, The Way of the Three Magi to Bethlehem, The Adoration of the Magi, The Return of the Three Magi, The Flight to Egypt, and The Presentation of Jesus at the Temple.
PUTNA
Year Built: 1466-1469
Built by: Stephen the Great
Location: Putna, Suceava County
The present church was practically rebuilt between 1653 and 1662 by Vasile Lupu and his successors. The imposing Putna Monastery is situated about 30 km northwest from the town of Radauti, near the Putna River. High, forested hills and wild landscape surround the monastery and the village with the same name. Stephen the Great built the monastery as his burial place between 1466 and 1469, and the Church of the Assumption of the Holy Virgin was consecrated one year later.
The monastery museum has an important collection of mediaeval art objects, mainly from the time of Stephen the Great and his immediate successors. The first superior was Archimandrite Ioasaf from Neamt Monastery, the first important monastic centre in Moldavia. The superior was accompanied by calligraphers, who were the first teachers of the new monastery school that followed the example of the school of Neamt. It started as a school of rhetoric, logic and grammar for future chroniclers and clerical staff, but soon Putna became one of the most significant cultural centers in the country. Only three years after the monastery was completed, a fire destroyed it, but it was immediately rebuilt. It was destroyed again in 1653 by the Cossack army of Timus Hmelnitchi, the son-in-law of Prince Vasile Lupu. The present church was practically rebuilt between 1653 and 1662 by Vasile Lupu and his successors. The ground plan follows the plan of the original edifice, as could be ascertained when the foundations of the first church were excavated from 1968 to 1970.
Stephen the Great ruled for half a century, 1457-1504. He earned his surname “Great” for his several successful military campaigns against the infidel Turks. He is also famous for building and influencing the building of dozens of churches and monasteries all over Moldavia. Allegedly he founded a religious edifice after each important military victory. In the Putna monastery, is found the tomb of King Stephen the Great and several of his family members. His tomb became a place of pilgrimage. The icon waves and the tomb covers are evidence of the creative spirit of the Moldavian artists of Stephen the Great’s time.
The church was unusually large for its time, but the explanation was that it was built to be the burial place of the Prince, his family and his successors. The thick walls are made of massive blocks of stone, and twelve buttresses support the walls. Originally there were only six, and the other six were added during the 17th and 18th centuries.
Although the present church follows the ground plan of a typical 15th and 16th century Moldavian church, it has many architectural and decorative features that are typical of 17th century churches. The exterior walls are not the smooth facades of earlier times, but two rows of blind arcades go around the building, smaller ones above the twisted stone cable, and tall ones below it. The stone cable motif was first used in the church of the Dragomirna Monastery in 1609.
The tall windows of the exonarthex, three on the west facade and one each on the north and south facades, follow the shape and size of the tall blind arcades. Their upper parts are decorated with intricately carved stone tracery. All the other windows are much smaller, with pointed arches and square carved stone frames. It had been usual to have only one window in each of the three apses, but here there are three windows in each apse, another late influence. Also the lantern tower differs from the traditional ones: it is two-tiered. On the lower octagonal part, there is a small window on each side with a twisted Baroque pilaster in between them. On the upper, narrower part, there is the usual four windows.The entrance to the church goes through two lateral doors. Two groined vaults span the exonarthex, which is an unpainted room full of light from the five big windows. It is possible that the exonarthex was added to the construction later in the 17th century. Fragments of mural painting have been discovered on the east wall, but in areas that are no longer visible: under the present floor level and in the attic, behind the vaults.
These are the most important monasteries in Bucovina and if you are in the area it’s a must to visit them. The “Voronet blue” is a unique color, the scientist tried to obtain it but remained still a secret.
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