3. matei basarab

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MATEI BASARABS FOUNDATION PROGRAM

IN WALLACHIA AND BULGARY

IOLANDA IGHILIU

Therewas nobetter ruler than Matei Voda.

Religio est modus cognoscendi et colendi Deum- Religion is the wayof knowing and praising God - said Saint Augustin1.

The life of the medieval man can not be conceived outside God.Fasting, prayer, obedience and love were virtues which were requested fromevery Christian. Neagoe Basarab (1512-1521) was teaching his son Theodosiethat from the fear of God comes fasting, and from fasting cleanliness, andfrom cleanliness prayer, prayer gives birth to obedience, obedience gives birthto love, from love comes the order of things and the spiritual support2. Thesevirtues were even more important for those who chose the monastic life.

Actually, without being restricted by rigid written norms, the Orthodoxmonastic life retains some elements from the old Rules of Saints Pahomie,Vasile the Great and Teodosie, which were orally transmitted, and living modelstransmitted from one person to another and from one generation to another.

According to this model, the monk is the type of Christian who istotally dedicated. The person endowed with an authentic monastic vocation willalways find the happiness in giving rather than getting, will choose silenceinstead of talking, enduring instead of crying, poverty instead of richness,tranquility and isolation instead of social live and success, obedience andpatience instead of vanity3. They accomplished their duty in the numerous smallconvents and monasteries all around the country.

The founder, the one who embodied his love and obedience in stone inthe face of God hoping that he will be granted forgiveness and reconciliationwith the divinity, had to take care of his own creation. The huge financial effortmade between XVth-XVIIth by the royalty and the boyars, and in the followingperiod, by other social classes as well, consisting of the building of monasteriesand churches and endowing them with large pieces of land, grantingimmunities, peasants, slaves, different privileges can only be explained throughthe profound and sincere conviction of people that the offers they brought,each according to his own capacity, to God, will be of great help in their

1 Apud Isidor Todoran, Ioan Zgran,Teologia dogmatic,Bucureti, 1991, p. 35.2nvturile lui Neagoe Basarab ctre fiul su Theodosie, Bucureti, 1971, p. 346.3 N. Steinhardt,Druind vei dobndi, Bucureti, 1994, p. 291-292.


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present life and ofcaptatio benevolentiaeat the Judgement Day, which will decide

their place in the other life4

.In the XVIIth century, the most fervent founding activity, whichreunited all the social categories of the country, was registered - from rulers,boyars and small boyars, to clergy, from bishops to monks.

The most numerous religious buildings were erected in Wallachia, andfrom these most were small churches and small secluded convents far from theworld, by monks with relatively small fortunes but with a great love anddevotion for God.5

Apart from being religious and cultural buildings, the great monasteriescould also serve as surveillance and resistance points, in the defense system ofWallchia and Moldavia, conceived in the spirit of the military doctrine of anactive defense under the circumstances of a lack of fortresses and the presence

of the Turkish rayas along the Danube.Aligned in the borders region and around the royal residences, MateiBasarabs foundlings, ruler of Wallachia (1632-1654), covered the mostimportant strategic areas: South-Carpathian (Tismana, Arnota, Govora,Campulung, Brebu monasteries); Danubian (Strehaia, Sadova, Brancoveni,Draganesti, Negoesti, Slobozia monasteries); to Moldavia and the road comingfrom there (Maxineni and Pinu monasteries); Targoviste (Campulung andBrebu monasteries situated on the access roads to the old royal residence).These monasteries were in most part fortified.

It is worth mentioning the fact that near them were placed militarygarrisons (cavalry and gendarmes). Thus the Southern line was marked bymilitary units at Strehaia, Craiova, Caracal, Rusii de Vede, Hodivoaia, Lichiresti;

Bucharest and Targoviste were defended by their own garrisons, while theBuzau units watched over the North-Eastern borders of Wallachia6.The research I made on the origin, structure and evolution of the land

fortune owned by Matei Basarab, revealed aspects connected to the formationof this great fortune and the relationships between the different socialcategories involved in this process, as well as the dimension of the materialpossibilities demanded by a cultural enterprise such as that initiated andaccomplished by Matei Basarab.

Owning 153 properties, having impressive sums of money in histreasury, Matei Basarab granted many years of peace and prosperity to the

4 Iolanda ighiliu, Societate i mentalitate n ara Romneasc i Moldova (secolele XV-XVII),Bucureti, Paideia Publishing House, 1997, p. 184.5Ibidem,p. 178.6 N. Stoicescu,Curteni i slujitori, Bucureti, 1968, p. 110-111, 128.


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Matei Basarabs Foundation Programin Wallachia and Bulgary

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country and could initiate the plans of an anti- ottoman crusade which could

reunite the Balkan people.The efforts of this Romanian ruler are known and appreciated by theBulgarian historiography. Thus, historian Ivan Duicev shows that: as Warsawas well as at Vienna there were no serious intentions concerning the beginningof a war against the Ottoman Empire, especially for the cause of the subjugatedpeoples. The Bulgarian historian admitted the importance of the Moldavianand the Wallachian rulers from the XVIIth century to the cultural and politicallife of the Balkan people, especially to the Bulgarian people, as well as their rolein the liberation movement of the Bulgarians []. Matei Basarab was theonlypolitical leader willingto help theBulgarians tofreefromtheOttoman leadership.7

But, what survived to our days and made the glory of Matei voda washis cultural national and pan orthodox project. The activity of printing

machines was reinitiated; they published books for the entire Orthodox space,the translations of books in Romanian, the use of this in the royal chancelleryand the elimination of the Slavonic, the organization of the educational systemand of the schools, all represent directions in which the will of the ruler, whohad beside him, as a counselor, the scholar Udriste Nasturel, his brother in-law,was fully present.

But the corollary of his two decades of ruling was the creation of acoherent and unitary artistic landscape which marks the first wallachianarchitectonic style, announcing thus the moment and the Brancovenian style,from the end of the century.8

From this perspective, Matei Basarab is considered the greatest founderof the Romanian people, being programmatically, a builder and a re-builder of

religious buildings, most of them monastic, stylistically connected to each other.He also rebuilds many monasteries from Mount Athos.Cultural protector - crusade and anti-ottoman spirit - of South-East

European Orthodoxy - the Govora Book of Psalms, from 1637, was printed, inSlavonic, for those clerics preaching to the use of Bulgarians and theSerbians, Matei Basarab and his lady, Elina, built churches at Vidin andSvistov, making gifts to Studenica and Mileseva monasteries or at the AthoniteHilandar, had relationships at the craft centre from Kiprovac, from Bulgary.

7 Ivan Duicev, Petar Parcevici incercrile de el iberare a popoarelor balcanice de sub stpnirea otoman, in

Relaii romno-bulgarede-a lungul veacurilor (sec. XII-XIX),vol. I, Bucureti, 1971, p. 156, apudN. Stoicescu,Matei Basarab,Bucureti, 1988, p. 180-181.8Rzvan Theodorescu,Epoca lui Matei Basarab, rscruce a vechii culturi romneti, in Revista deistorie, t. 35, 1982, nr. 12, p. 1330-1338.


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At Vidin, Matei Basarab and his lady Elina built Saint Parascheva and

Saint Pantelimon Churches. The first, probably dates from 1641-1642. Built instone with a short tower, the church still preserves its original painting.The Svistov Churchs patrons are Saints Peter and Pavel. The votive

paintings in which Matei Basarab, the ruler of Wallachia, and his lady Elina areshown as founders, are still preserved. The churches are built in the ground,according to the rules imposed by the Ottoman authorities.

Nothing from Matei Basarabs founding program was by hazard. Fromthe place chosen for the building, to the patron chosen or the gifts offered,everything is made according to a propaganda programwell conceived and wellstructured. It is worth mentioning the fact that, from the beginning of theXVIIth century, even the term propaganda appears (with the founding, at theVatican, of theCongregatio DePropaganda Fide).

The foundlings the Wallachian ruler, Matei Basarab, made at Vidin andSvistov, testify his Christian and protective thought which was always close tothe Bulgarian people.

3. matei basarab

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