Dr. Ioan Rațiu's Desk Set / The History of Romania in One Object

The week's focus in our historical journey, made possible by a partnership with The National Museum of Transylvanian History in Cluj-Napoca, is the elegant Desk Set that belonged to Dr. Ioan Rațiu, one of the leaders of the national movement of Romanians in Transylvania, in the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. Like many of his fellow patriots, the respected lawyer and member of one of the oldest Transylvanian families paid with his own freedom the temerity to ask for equal rights and cry out against discrimination in a time when such demands were still considered a crime. Text and video presentation by Claudia Bonța. Film concept by Geanina Simion and Dragoș Popa.

Watch and read on our FACEBOOK, YOUTUBE and WEBSITE from Monday, October 26, 2 p.m. EDT (or anytime later).

Art historian CLAUDIA BONȚA is a History and Archaeology graduate of the Babeș Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca with an MA in Medieval History and Roman Archaeology. She got her PhD in Art History at the Babeș Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca and between 2011-2012 she undertook post-doctoral studies at Denkmal Akademie Görlitz. She is the recipient of numerous bursaries such as the Socrates Bursary, the „Ion Rațiu” Bursary and the French Government Bursary. She is the author of of many important works among which Baroque Influences in Central-European Medal Work. Seventeenth - Eighteenth Centuries and Ludwig Rohbock: Graphic Itineraries in the 19th Century. Transylvania Seen by Ludwig Rohbock.

Our online series THE HISTORY OF ROMANIA IN ONE OBJECT, developed in partnership with some of the most important history museums in the country, evokes decisive epochs in Romania's past starting from artifacts or vestiges with powerful symbolic, representative value.