Placed in 1912, the bust of Gheorghe Panu is made in bronze and stone by the sculptor Gheorghe Horvath. Gheorghe Panu is represented in the posture of a sower who holds the hem of his coat with one hand and scatters the “seeds” with the other. At the base of the pedestal are represented in bronze the newspaper “Lupta” that he led and his main works, surrounded by laurel branches.
Another work of Gheorghe Horvath is the Statue of Vasile Lascăr, unveiled on June 1, 1908, located right in front of the house where he lived.
Who was Gheorghe Panu?
Gheorghe Panu (1848-1910) was a remarkable intellectual, a supporter of the idea of freedom and a fighter for the modernization of Romania, a complex personality from the second half of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century.
He argued that history is not written from books made by great historians, but from sources, from testimonies, from chronicles and documents. He did not accept the purely Roman origin of the Romanians, nor the exaggeration of national pride. He fought the anti-Semitism of some politicians of the time and supported democracy, including women’s rights.
He was a journalist full of verve and polemical spirit, jurist of great reputation, literary critic and writer.
His best book is “Amintiri de la Junimea”, a true fresco of the high-level intellectual life in Iasi, at the end of the 19th century.
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