Sturdza Castle

Just 20 km from the city of Roman, in the heart of a romantic park, you'll discover a place as if from a fairy tale: Sturdza Castle in Miclaușeni. With a history full of fascinating characters and the air of an era when elegance and erudition were more part of the values and concerns of high society, a visit to the castle of Miclaușeni is a wonderful opportunity to revisit bygone times, through the power of imagination.

Although the history of the estate stretches back to the 14th century, the domain's heyday overlaps with the one in which George Sturdza and Maria Ghica, the daughter of the great politician Ion Ghica, lived here. They built the current Gothic-inspired castle between 1880–1904 on the site of an old manor built in 1755.

The motto of the Sturdza family, "Beauty shines everywhere", inscribed in Latin on all the facades of the castle, was a telling expression of the "Belle Epoque" style atmosphere that reigned here in the years before the outbreak of the great wars. We can imagine, walking through the elegant salons, the great personalities of the time who took part here in the cultural evenings organized by the Sturdza-Ghica family: King Carol I, Mihail Kogălniceanu, George Enescu, Nicolae Iorga and many others.

George Sturdza and Maria Ghica had only one daughter, Ecaterina. Widowed at a young age after the death of Șerban Cantacuzino, she had no children, but raised her cousin, Matei Ghica Cantacuzino, who grew up to be one of the heroes of Romanian aviation. When the war came, when she had to leave the castle to take refuge in Roman, Ecaterina saved a lot of extremely precious objects, books of worship and liturgical objects, which she then donated to the Monastery of Miclaușeni.

This brave woman's devotion to the history of her ancestors allows us to admire these objects today. Ecaterina is also the one who, in 1947, donated to the Romanian Diocese the Miclăușeni castle, the park and the church founded by her ancestors in order to set up a nunnery here. Towards the end of her life she became a nun, taking the name of Nun Macrina.

The Miclăuşean Library was a private collection made up of approximately 60,000 volumes, including incunabula and many princeps or very rare editions. It was made by the logothete Dimitrie Sturza and his sons, Costache Sturza-Şcheianu and Alexandru Sturza-Miclăuşanu, as well as the latter's son, Dimitrie A. Sturza, an important man of culture and former president of the Romanian Academy.

The collection included both Romanian books (mostly princeps editions of the 18th and 19th centuries, copies of almost all Romanian chronicles, as well as prints or religious manuscripts from the 16th-19th centuries), and foreign ones (numerous princeps editions from European literature, philosophical writings from antiquity and the Middle Ages, historical works or with moral and religious content, as well as magazine collections). Of course, all these volumes had an inestimable value, both materially, but especially culturally: three of the first five known translations into Romanian (from the end of the 15th century and from the 16th century) come from Miclăuşeni or Şcheia: The Şcheian Psalter (approx. 1500-1559), the Voroneţean Psalter (approx. 1500-1559) and Codex Sturdzanus (1580-1619).

Unfortunately, only a few thousand books could be recovered from the collection, they are today at the Diocese of Roman, at the University Library in Iasi, and some documents are in the possession of the State Archives. However, many extremely valuable volumes disappeared without a trace in the years 1944-1945, when Ecaterina Sturdza Cantacuzino was in refuge in Roman. The books that Ecaterina managed to save were later confiscated by the Securitate and barbarically destroyed.

Nowadays, the castle is enhanced by a lot of events carried out with the involvement of the community, which recreate the atmosphere of the past. Visitors can learn all the stories of the Miclăușeni estate from specialized guides, stay in Casa Macrina - a historic building located in the vicinity of the castle, dine at the Castle's restaurant and go home with souvenirs or locally produced gastronomic specialties.

Starting in 2024, the Castle has entered an extensive restoration process that will span a period of at least 24 months.