With the blessing of His Eminence Calinic, Archbishop of Suceava and Rădăuți, the “Stephen the Great” Research and Documentation Center of the Putna Monastery organized, on February 20, 2025, the 31st edition of the “Putna Colloquia” International History Symposium, hosted in Bucharest by the “Nicolae Iorga” History Institute of the Romanian Academy.

The edition was dedicated to historian Ștefan Andreescu († 2024), researcher at the “Nicolae Iorga” History Institute, a specialist in the history of the Middle Ages, and author of numerous studies dedicated to Voivode Stephen the Great. In this regard, the historian was remembered by his fellow historians and colleagues Ștefan S. Gorovei and Andrei Pippidi, with whom he had collaborated on many research projects. The presentations reflected the late historian’s interests: Romanian political and cultural history within the South-East European context (including a sensitive topic in Romanian historiography, referring to minorities and (in)tolerance; the grain crisis in the Black Sea region in the mid-15th century and its climatic and political causes), as well as topics related to the history of Moldavia in Stephen the Great’s time (a new interpretation of a document that stirred many controversies, Uzun Hasan’s letter to Stephen the Great; some events from 1593 connected to the hiding of some treasures at the Tânganu and Glavaciog Monasteries, where Petru Cercel’s family members were involved; on the Venetian merchant Polo Minio’s life, political activity and connections with Moldova), and on the history of the Putna Monastery (the development of “St Onuphrius” Skete, former metochion of the Putna Monastery; the constructions made within the place of worship between 1822 and 1828; the historical monuments of Bukovina affected by the Great War, according to a report by Sever Zotta).