page_title: History of Buzău
section_title: 19th-century development
hierarchical_section_title: History of Buzău / 19th-century development
caption_attribution_description: Târg la Buzău
context_page_description: According to Romanian archaeologist Vasile Pârvan, the river Mousaios mentioned in a letter from Ioannis Soranus, governor of Scythia Minor, to the archbishop of Caesarea Mazaca should be identified with the modern Buzău River. The document, kept in copies at the Vatican Library and San Marco Library in Venice, tells about the martyrdom of a Christian missionary by the name of Sabbas, drowned by the Goths in the river Mousaios. Beginning with the 20th century, Sabbas has been presented as the spiritual patron of the city of Buzău as well as of several local villages.
  Several graves were found in Buzău, as well as coins that prove the presence of a settlement on the territory of the modern city.
context_section_description: During the 19th century, the city overcame the difficulties of repeated reconstruction, and started to develop as a modern city with solid businesses and a cultural life. The Crâng forest became a leisure place for the locals around 1829, and was eventually organized as a public garden by 1850.
  Schools began to be set up, as in 1831 the bishopric opened a school for muralists and icon painters, led by Nicolae Teodorescu and attended by Gheorghe Tattarescu. One year later, the National School (the first school in Buzău to teach in the Romanian language) was open, and in 1838 Școala Normală (a school for teachers) was inaugurated by Dionisie Romano. Școala normală trained teachers for the city schools and for 115 villages. The Buzău theological seminar was open in 1836. It was the first secondary school in Buzău and the second theological school in Wallachia, after the one in Bucharest.
  The oldest known census in Buzău showed, in 1832, a total population of 2567, of which one was Austrian, one was English, 18 were Jewish and the rest Romanian.
  Around 1837–1840, public lighting was introduced on the main street. The street lamps were using tallow candles. By 1861, the number of public street lamps grew from 38 to 50. In 1841 the streets were realigned "by urban rules".
  By 1842, the city had a stable doctor, a drugstore, a fire squad and an officially authorised midwife.
  During the Wallachian revolution of 1848, a "National Guard", supervised by Barbu and Nicolae Bălcescu was set up immediately after the government was organized in Bucharest in June. However, the revolution was crushed by Russian and Ottoman forces, and Buzău was occupied by the Russian army for three years. The Russian army briefly occupied Buzău again in 1853 during the Crimean War. After the occupation ended, the city's development was resumed.
  At the Ad-hoc divans organised after the Congress of Paris in 1856, a large majority of representatives of Buzău voted for Wallachia's union with Moldova. Later on, after a personal union was completed on 5 February 1859, Prince Alexandru Ioan Cuza was welcomed enthusiastically by the inhabitants of Buzău and was persuaded to spend the night in the city on his way from Iași to Bucharest. The newly elected Domn of both Wallachia and Moldova left the city the next day via Strada Mare, a street known today by the name of Bulevardul Unirii (Union Boulevard).
  The buildings on the Cuza Vodă Street (at the time known as Strada Târgului -- Market Street) were erected between 1850 and 1880 in the style of the 19th-century South-Eastern European commercial houses two-storey buildings with shops on the ground floor, and residences on the top floor.
  Cultural life blossomed, as in 1852, the first theater show in Buzău took place. In 1854, a printing press was imported by the bishopric from Vienna, and was subsequently used to print the Buzău Bible, the fourth Romanian bible (the first three being the Bucharest Bible in 1688, one printed in Blaj in 1792 and another printed in Saint Petersburg in 1819).
  Public lighting was enhanced in 1860 by introducing petrol lamps. In the same year, street numbers were assigned to houses, and streets were paved with stones. The Gârlași Hospital (nowadays, the Infectious Diseases Hospital) was open in 1865, being the first permanent city hospital.
  The Moldavia theater was open in 1898 in a building in central Buzău. The 400 seats hall was the location where important Romanian artists that came to Buzău, such as Nicolae Leonard, Constantin Nottara and George Enescu performed.
  In 1899, mayor Nicu Constantinescu began the construction of the Communal Palace, a project completed in 1903. The Communal Palace is now the city's most prominent landmark. Constantinescu also decided to refactor the central streets of Buzău, which were narrow and winding, a heritage of the market town history and the repeated destructions followed by disorganized rebuilding of the city. Thus, the wide and straight Park Boulevard (linking the city center and the Crâng Park) and the Railway Station Boulevard (linking the ce
caption: A fair in Buzău, 1869 watercolour by Amedeo Preziosi
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