Historia Universitatis Iassiensis 7, 133–144
Abstract. The cultural heritage has become lately the point of interest for historians and specialists in museology. It is a theme which plays a major role in shaping, creating and preserving the identities, not only national but also ethnic or for groups and it also consolidates the institutional memory by reference to past or common values.
The purpose of this paper is to analyze, organize and structure the jubilee exhibitions from 1960 and 1985. The Anniversaries for 100 and 125 years respectively of modern higher education in Iași were for the university’s management and for professors not only an opportunity to make a review or to reflect upon their own past, but also to strengthen the university’s position in the Romanian and international academia. Among the initiatives that were taken thanks to these events, the museum exhibitions had many roles and took part in the process of consolidating the academia, in celebrating the past and also in connecting it, in different ways, to the immediate political context.
Both exhibitions had the same theme and they were organized after a similar scenario. The first exhibit cases were dedicated to academia’s “prehistory”, the predecessors of the University of Iași being clearly marked, in order to establish an institutional genealogy and to look in the past for the roots of the higher education in Moldavia. The next exhibit cases display cronolo¬gically documents of scientific research, works of professors and students, and documents regarding international relations over time. The biggest reward of the exhibitions from 1960 and 1985 is the fact that there were collected many pieces of academia’s memories, objects, documents, photographies, which represent national treasures of indisputable value. Without the care and attention of people interested in the place’s history, all these would have been lost.
Therefore, we highlighted, on the one hand, the impact such anniversaries had upon academia and posterity and, on the other hand, we presented the tradition of establishing the current museum of “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University.
