09/04/2023
Putna Colloquia, 29th Edition
With the blessing of His Eminence Calinic, Archbishop of Suceava and Rădăuți, Putna Monastery’s “Stephen the Great” Research and Documentation Center organized the 29th edition of the “Putna Colloquia” international history symposium. The works were held between August 30–September 3, 2023, with physical participation, and brought together researchers from Bucharest, Iaşi, and Cluj-Napoca, and also from Kishinev and Kyiv. The edition included a Musicology section and two sections dedicated to the Voroneț Monastery.
The presented papers focused on various aspects of the history of Moldavia during the epoch of Stephen the Great (the diplomatic emissary in Kaffa, the complex relations of Moldavia with the Ottoman Empire, the legend of Stephen the Great meeting Daniel the Hermit, the role of military saints in the ideology of Stephen the Great’s time, Prince Aron taking refuge within the walls of the Putna Monastery), and also other aspects related to Romanian medieval history (conflict and diplomacy in Moldavian-Hungarian relations, the canonization and worship of Slavic local saints in the Balkan churches); genealogy issues such as the medieval history of the Cârjești family, the dyptichs of the Bistrița Monastery or a controversial aspect of Stephen the Great’s biography; art history topics (icons of the patronal feast of the “Holy Martyr George” Church in Hârlău; an embroidery fragment from the patrimony of the Putna Monastery; Byzantine-tradition embroidery in Romania; the origins and subsequent transformations of the Dragomirna Monastery iconostasis; microarchitectural tabernacles of Gothic inspiration from Moldavian churches), found manuscripts (the Hurmuzaki and the Voroneț Psalters, direct testimonies on the conditions in which the oldest Romanian texts appeared; the manuscript legacy of Neamț Monastery’s scholar Gavriil Uric; a manuscript from the patrimony of the Holy Sepulcher Metochion in Constantinople; the first Moldavian translation of the Service of the Lamentations of the Dormition of the Mother of God; books and founders during Prince Antioch Cantemir’s reign or about the place of the Arab translation of Dimitrie Cantemir’s Divan); and especially on the Putna Monastery’s past: documents referring to Putna Monastery in the Bukovina Section of the Historic Monuments Commission; The Moldavian Romanian Women’s Flag in Iași presented at the 1871 Putna Celebration; the first Guest Register of the Putna Monastery; the 1904 and 1919 Putna Celebrations dedicated to Stephen the Great or aspects of the Putna Monastery life during Abbot Paisie Prelipcean as reflected in documents from the monastery archive.
The Musicology Section included papers presented by researchers from Romania and Ukraine on the Putna music treasury and the Putna Music School, Eustatie the Protopsaltis’ Antologion, which is currently held at the State Archives of the Russian Federation, Pafnutie the Protopsaltis’ and Teodosie Zotika’s Putna Antologia; on Filotei sin Agăi Jipei, author of the Psaltichia rumânească (“Romanian Psaltic Music Handbook”) from 1713, and also on Ukrainian and Belarussian musical manuscripts.
The papers presented in the two sections dedicated to the Voroneț Monastery were focused on aspects related to Voroneț Monastery’s economy and patrimony, the issue of making a true and complete history of the Voroneț Monastery, on founders and abbots of the monastery, but also on art history issues.
During the Colloquia, an exhibition dedicated to Venerable Eustatie the Protopsaltes and the Putna Music School was inaugurated, followed by the projection of the documentary Cuviosul Eustatie Protopsaltul și Școala muzicală de la Putna (“Venerable Eustatie the Protopsaltes and the Putna Music School”), made by Trinitas TV.
Please read on this page the detailed list of discussions carried out during this edition of the “Putna Colloquia”.