Romania’s president has decorated two of the country’s top museum curators and a famous historian, three figures who have “contributed to the writing of history and enriching Romania’s culture.”
Culture Minister Raluca Turcan hosted the ceremony held on Thursday, Romania’s National Day of Culture, and personally handed out the medals which were decreed by President Klaus Iohannis.
The three laureates are the managers of the National Museum of History of Romania and the National Museum of Art of Romania, Ernest Oberlander-Tarnoveanu and Calin Stegerean, and historian Andrei Pippidi.
Mrs. Turcan said Mr. Oberland-Tarnoveanu had touched her by saying the value of his work at the National History Museum was down to the whole team. “It was a gesture of altruism,” she told an audience at the culture ministry.
She said he had been involved in the museum life– or museography– for almost half a century, mostly at the National History Museum, managing it “with passion and competence, for 13 years.”
Of Calin Stegerean, the manager of the National Art Museum, she said “You understood the high expectations that art lovers had,” praising him for “an absolutely spectacular” exhibition of Romanian great Nicolae Grigorescu.
The exhibition held last year featured 100 paintings including 23 that were restored having been locked in the museum warehouses for decades.
She thanked historian and Academy member Andrei Pippidi for his books and works on Romania’s history. “You gave us a better understanding of what we are and what we want to become,” she said simply.
Mr. Pippidi, 75, is the grandson of the Nicolae Iorga, a former prime minister and historian who was assassinated by the fascist Iron Guard in 1940. Universities around the world flew their flags at half mast and French historian Henri Focillon called Iorga “one of those legendary personalities planted, for eternity, in the soil of a country and the history of human intelligence.”
She said the awards were to honor “three emblematic figures of Romanian culture.
The National Order “Faithful Service”, the rank of “Officer” was awarded to Mr. Oberlander-Tarnoveanu; the National Order “For Merit”, the rank of “Knight” to Mr. Stegerean and the National Order “Star of Romania” the rank of “Officer” to Mr. Pippidi.
ClasicFest, the multidisciplinary arts festival in a stunning Romanian palace
