Brașov through time

A city with a crown on its coat of arms and a burnt church#

The name Corona appears in a catalogue of Premonstratensian monasteries from the 1230s, considered the first written mention of the city. Saxon settlers brought in by the kings of Hungary built a citadel of merchants and craftsmen here, with walls, bastions guarded by guilds and a large church in the middle. The city’s coat of arms shows a crown on a rooted trunk.

No photographs survive from these centuries, only what was preserved in stone, in books and in reconstructions.

Kronstadt, printed in colour#

Photochrom is a colour printing process that appeared in Switzerland in the 1880s: a black-and-white negative transferred to several lithographic stones, one for each colour. Views of Austria-Hungary, including Brașov, called Brassó in Hungarian documents and Kronstadt by the Saxons, entered the 1905 catalogue of the American firm Detroit Publishing Company.

The Library of Congress holds three such images of the city, in the public domain. The record for the Council House (Casa Sfatului) gives, in square brackets, the publisher Photoglob of Zürich and the years c. 1890–1906; the records for the other two give “between ca. 1890 and ca. 1900” and do not name the publisher.

A monument about 20 metres high on the summit of Tâmpa#

In 1896, for the celebration of the Hungarian Millennium, the Hungarian administration put up the Millennium Monument on the summit of Tâmpa. It stood about 20 metres high, with a warrior on top, and was visible from all over the city. The people of Brașov called it “Árpád’s statue”.

A dynamite attack damaged the monument in September 1913. The statue collapsed in December, in a storm; parts of the plinth were dynamited in 1916. The ruins stayed on the mountain until 1960, when they were removed, according to the Lucian Blaga Central University Library (Cluj) record and the Casa Mureșenilor Museum record. A booklet of the Brașov Metropolitan Agency says “until the years 1966”, without a note, so 1960 stands here.

Three printed names on the same postcard#

Around 1900, the city’s postcard publishers wrote the name in all their customers’ languages: Brassó for Hungarians, Kronstadt for Saxons, Brașov for Romanians. In the catalogue of the Lucian Blaga Central University Library, Cluj, all 6 cards dated before 1919 put the Hungarian name first.

The illustrated cards show a city spreading beyond its walls: a new railway station, a post office palace, a palace of justice, a park with a fountain.

Interwar Brașov, between the post office and the Aro hotel#

After the Union of 1918, the city became part of Romania. Of the 77 postcards dated between 1919 and 1940 in the Cluj library catalogue, 72 carry only the name Brașov; three, all Fotofilm Cluj, 1933, keep the titles in three languages, with Brașov first. The city grew industrially: in 1925 the IAR aircraft factory was founded here.

Architecture changed too. The Army House (Casa Armatei) went up between 1929 and 1932, and in 1939, just before the war, the Aro hotel opened, designed by Horia Creangă, nephew of the writer Ion Creangă.

Ten years in which Brașov was called Orașul Stalin (Stalin City)#

Between 22 August 1950 and 24 December 1960, Brașov was officially called Orașul Stalin. The regime chose it as a showcase of industrialisation: the IAR aircraft factory had become the Tractorul plant in 1948, and the Steagul Roșu works made lorries. New districts of blocks of flats were built for workers brought in from all over the country.

The selection below shows factories, blocks of flats and the cable car, but also the old centre. The name Orașul Stalin is printed on the postcards themselves: 92 records in the Cluj library catalogue carry it in the title.

The city of factories becomes a holiday city too#

In the 1960s–1980s, Poiana Brașov developed as a winter-sports resort. Skiers had been climbing Postăvarul since 1895, and the socialist state turned the clearing into a resort with hotels, cable cars and restaurants for tourists from Romania and abroad.

The colour postcards of the period show everything in intense colours: orange and red flowers, blue sky, cars in the car park.

Workers take to the streets against Ceaușescu, two years before 1989#

On 15 November 1987, workers at Steagul Roșu took to the streets, angry at wage cuts and shortages. Other people of Brașov joined them, and the crowd reached the headquarters of the county Party committee. Testimonies from participants and the chronology published by the Sighet Memorial document the protest and the repression that followed.

The Saxon citadel, beneath the letters on Tâmpa#

Council Square (Piața Sfatului) and the Black Church can be recognised in contemporary photographs, although the traffic, the buildings and the use of the square have changed. The white letters BRAȘOV can now be seen on the slope of Tâmpa; the 1896 monument stood high up, on the ridge.