National Theatre

The first attempt in founding The National Theatre in Moldavia dates only since 1816, when Gheorghe Asachi, still young than and with a special culture, which he had aquired in most foreign cities, by fighting against the landowner's prejudices, he was the first one to organise theatrical performances in Romanian. He first translated and found a few foreign plays, some of the best at that time. Than with great insistence he persuaded more nobles to allow their sons to perform in his plays.Asachi, with his expenses, founded a society theatre, in hetman's Costachi Ghica houses, across the Metropholitan church, which later on became Nagroponti and Paltisanschi's estates. He, who was not only a scene painter but also a mechanic he turned his house into a factory. The main curtain was whitewashed after a patern from Rome and presented the image of Apolon with the Muses, who stretched his hand to raise Moldavia.Therefore, at 27 december in the same year, was performed the first theatre play in Romanian: Mirtil and Hloe, a pastorel in one act, processed by Asachi himself, after Gessner and Florin. The children of nobles Ghica and Sturza played the roles in this play, who were: madam Subin, born Ghica, in the role of Hloe, the prince Ghica in the role of Mirtil and Costachi Sturza in the role of Lizis, reverer to Amor.

History

The city was burned down by the Tatars in 1513, by the Ottomans in 1538, by the Imperial Russian troops in 1686. In 1734, it was hit by the plague.
Through the Peace of Iaşi, the sixth Russo-Turkish War was brought to a close in 1792. A Greek revolutionary maneuver and occupation under Alexander Ypsilanti and the Filiki Eteria (1821, at the beginning of the Greek War of Independence) led to the storming of the city by the Turks in 1822. In 1844 there was a severe conflagration.
Between 1565 and 1859, the city was the capital of Moldavia; then, between 1859 and 1862, both Iaşi and Bucharest were de-facto capitals of the United Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia (the Danubian Principalities). In 1862, when the union of the two principalities was recognized under the name of Romania, the national capital was established in Bucharest. For the loss caused to the city in 1861 by the removal of the seat of government to Bucharest the constituent assembly voted 148,150 lei to be paid in ten annual instalments, but no payment was ever made.