The Golden Memories of the Greatest Coronation

The next object presented in our historical series, "The History of Romania in One Object", created in partnership with The National Museum of Transylvanian History in Cluj, is loaded with symbolism and emotion. The Great Medal of the 1922 Coronation of Ferdinand I and Marie as the ruling family of Greater Romania is a token of love not only because it evokes the greatest political event in our country's modern history – the unification of all Romanian provinces in one state – but also because it conveys a moving message from a most beloved monarch, Queen Marie of Romania. 

This event is part of the series dedicated by RCI New York to the celebration of the National Day of Romania 2020.

Text by Dr. Livia Călian. Video presentation by Dr. Ana-Maria Gruia. Film concept by Geanina Simion and Dragoș Popa.

Watch and read on our FACEBOOK, YOUTUBE and WEBSITE from Monday, November 30, 2 p.m. EDT (or anytime later).

Dr. LIVIA CĂLIAN is a graduate of the Faculty of History - Philosophy of the Babeș-Bolyai University in Cluj - Napoca. After 10 years of didactic activity, she took over the numismatic collection of the National Museum of Transylvanian History (MNIT). This is the second largest numismatic collection in Romania after the one in Bucharest, comprising over 120,000 pieces - coins from antiquity to the present, banknotes, medals, etc. Livia Călian is specialized in the study of Romanian and Central European medals. In 2004, she got her PhD in History from the Babeș-Bolyai University. She took part in numerous national and international conferences, and is the author or co-author of various papers on the study of coins and medals from the MNIT collection. As the custodian of the numismatic collection, she organized numerous exhibitions, including the MNIT Treasure Exhibition. She initiated the opening of new collections of public interest such as the collection of stamps and postcards, or that of insignia. Dr. Călian is a Ministry of Culture expert in numismatic heritage.

Dr. ANA-MARIA GRUIA has been a curator at the National Museum of Transylvanian History in Cluj-Napoca for over 10 years and the curator of its History of Pharmacy Collection for the past 5 years. She is an expert in decorative arts and iconography, with a PhD in Medieval Studies at the Central European University in Budapest, and Director of a post-doctoral project focusing on the introduction of smoking in the Principality of Transylvania at the Babeș-Bolyai University in Cluj, where she is currently teaching a course on museum studies. Dr. Gruia has written several books and more than 20 articles about the history of pharmacy, tobacco pipes and smoking, stove tiles, and iconography. Her primary contribution focuses on stove tiles with religious depictions from the medieval Kingdom of Hungary and the possible function of this particular iconography. She is also an established translator, amateur artist, and passionate reenactor.

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.