Focul din ianuarie 1880 şi Palatul domnesc din Iaşi
The fire of January 1880 and the Princely Palace of Iaşi

Summary/Abstract: The history of the Princely Palace of Iaşi has often been intertwined with a scourge that has plagued the city since ancient times, fire. Fires were frequent in medieval and pre-modern towns because buildings were mostly wooden, neighborhoods were cramped and there was no adequate fire service. In the past, the palace was destroyed by fire in 1784 and 1827. With all the modernization that took place in the first half of the 19th century, fires continued to strike, but they affected smaller areas or only buildings. Such was the case with the fire that broke out on 16/28 January 1880, which had quite serious consequences over the Princely Palace. We tried to reconstruct the event with the help of archival sources and the press of the time. After the fire was put out with great difficulty, due to the very cold weather and the lack of water (which was freezing), the reconstruction process began, the palace being insured. The work was completed in the fall of 1882, and the institutions previously housed here moved in until the spring of 1883. Among them were the National Archives, the branch in Iaşi, whose evolution we have researched with the available sources. On June 5, 1883, in the presence of King Charles and Queen Elizabeth, the statue of Ştefan the Great, an older project of Iasi's citizens dating back to 1856, was unveiled in front of the finished palace. As the rebuilt building had many deficiencies, the authorities decided to erect a new one in its place, more in tune with the times in terms of facilities, which is what happened between 1906 and 1925 (the current Palace of Culture).

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