Buzoian culture

The Culture of Buzău exhibition is dedicated to the cultural past of Buzău in which the role of the church and education in the life of society and in the plan of cultural activities as well as the interaction between Orthodox and secular culture is illustrated. The cultural past of Buzău cannot be separated from the religious life of its inhabitants. In the Middle Ages, as well as in the modern era, all the cultural initiatives in the Buzău area started from the Bishopric of Buzău, established during the reign of Radu cel Mare in 1500. From its beginnings, the Bishopric was a center that ensured the stability of the region, an old center printing house, a place with teachers and schools, it fulfilled an important religious role, having legal authority over the counties of Buzău, Râmnicu Sărat, Brăila and Săcuieni. In 1691, ruler Constantin Brâncoveanu established a printing house at the Buzău Diocese, where publications in Romanian with moral and religious content, work books, teaching books, school manuals were translated and printed.

In order to illustrate the scholarly activity, as well as the craft of decorating books and book covers, old religious documents and books representative of Buzău County are exhibited, scrolls, records, court books, written in the Cyrillic alphabet, special tools for decorating books (stamps, "beasts", fillets, rolls and molds, called in the era "seals", vignettes, etc.), as well as various cult objects such as: antimisses, heat cups, anafornica, censer, pristolnices, as well as paftals, patterns for the ornamentation of presques , mucarnica, candlesticks, etc.

The first schools in Buzău county functioned next to churches, monasteries and at the Episcopate, being documented in the 18th century, although certain forms of education existed before. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Buzău printing house served the school and the cultural upliftment of the people, its activity being illustrated by the display of liturgical books, school manuals, as well as the first church magazine in the country, published in Buzău between 1839 -1840, called Vestitorul Bisericesc, edited by Dionisie Romano and Gavriil Munteanu, under the patronage of Bishop Chesarie.

Gradually, the book became secularized, becoming an instrument of social struggle and at the same time of national education. In the exhibition there are manuscripts copied at the Buzău Diocese and the utensils used for writing, dating from the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century (liturgical books, works of theology and ecclesiastical history), as well as secular books (editions encyclopedias, manuals).

Along with the modernization and secularization of Romanian society, education was gradually transferred from the care of the church and private individuals to the state. As a result of the application of the provisions of the Organic Regulation (1831) and then of the instruction law during the reign of Alexandru Ioan Cuza (1864), we have three essential moments in the history of Buzoan lay education in the modern era: the establishment of the public national school (1832), the organization of the first course for village teachers (1838), establishment of the first gymnasium (1867).

The atmosphere of the old school is revived with the help of the reconstruction of a classroom from the interwar period. Objects that talk about the school universe from the first half of the 20th century are exhibited: school blackboards made of slate and pen, supplies, textbooks, medals for school prizes, examination and graduation certificates, photos of students, etc.