-
Johannes Honterus
(born 1498, Braşov - deceased 1549, Braşov)
Johannes Honterus, born Austen, was the most outstanding Saxon humanist, religious reformer of the Saxons of Transylvania, the founder of the Saxon gymnasium of Brasov, the actual „Johannes Honterus” Highshool. He studied in Vienne, taught in Cracow (Poland), he wrought books, he learned the art of printing in Basel, where he printed in 1532 the map of Ţara Bârsei. Since 1533 he returns at Brasov where he establishes one of the first printing houses in Transylvania and printed several works. He dedicates himself to the education of youth, establishes a school, a library and develops cultural activities. He was elected as first evangelical priest of the Black Church. A remarkable personality of his epoch, he gained since his lifetime an international fame. Today his name is borne by the Evangelical community of the Black Church (Honterusgemeinde), the courtyard where is located the famous monument, his statue, created in the XIXth century by the German sculptor Haro Magnussen and the highschool.
-
Diaconul Coresi
(born at Târgovişte, deceased 1583, Braşov)
The history didn't record the year when Coresi was born at Târgovişte... The author of the first books in Romanian language settled down in Scheii Braşovului after the first half of the XVIth century and remarkably distinguished as dean, translator and printer artisan. The printing press of Coresi is still functional today in the hall that bears his name, inside the Museum of the First Romanian School. With his printing machine, Coresi printed dozens of books, in hundreds of copies, essential for the constitution of the literary Romanian language. Some of them are exhibited in the Museum of Şchei. In the prefaces he wrought, Coresi militated for the introduction of the Romanian language in the church. In Braşov, his name is borne by a street of the Historical Centre, but also by the new neighbourhood which will be erected on the location of the former tractors' factory.
-
Constantin Lecca
(born 1807, Braşov - deceased 1887, Bucharest)
Constantin Lecca was not only a remarkable portraitist, author of some historical composition and ecclesiastical paintings, but also a militant for the Revolution of 1848, the Union of the Principalities and the Independence of Romania. He studied at Budapest. His manner of painting reminds the academism, but also the Biedermeier style and the Romanticism. He was the first teacher of the painter Theodor Aman. He founded the first printing house of Craiova and the first cultural review of Oltenia.
-
George Bariţ
(b. 1812, Jucu de Jos, Cluj shire - d. 1893, Sibiu)
George Bariţ, also spelled Gheorghe Bariţiu, an eminent historian and publicist – is the founder of the Romanian press in Transylvania. Graduate of the Faculty of Theology, he gave up the priesthood in favour of the didactic career. He occupied his first chair at Braşov; he is responsible for the establishment of the Romanian commercial education in Brasov, at the National Commercial School. He is the founder of the first Romanian newspaper of Transylvania, ”The Gazette of Transylvania”. The first number issued on 12 March 1838. The name George Bariţ, important revolutionary of 1848 is also linked to the foundation of the Transylvanian Association for Romanian Literature and Culture of the Romanian People (ASTRA). He was a founder member of the Romanian Literary Society, the precursor of the Romanian Academy. In 1893 he became the president of the Romanian Academy. He wrote dictionaries, history and theatre.
Several educational institution of Romania bear his name at Brasov, the County Library and a street of the Historical Centre.
-
Andrei Mureşianu
(born 1816, Bistriţa - deceased 1863, Braşov)
Andrei Mureşianu was a poet and a 1848's revolutionary of Transylvania. He studied philosophy and theology at Blaj. Since 1838 he came to Brasov where he worked as a teacher and redactor of the Review „Newspaper for mind, heart and literature”, collaborating with eminent scholars, among which his cousin, Iacob Mureşianu and his friend George Bariţ. In May 1848 he writes the poem “Un răsunet” („A reverberation”), for which he chooses a tune known in all the Romanian provinces, “Din sânul maicii mele” a composition attributed to George Ucenescu. This is how was created “Deşteaptă-te Române”, the anthem of the Revolution of 1848, the ”Marseillaise of the Romanians” – as the historian and revolutionary Nicolae Balcescu used to call this song, became the national anthem of Romania in 1989. Andrei Mureşianu, called by the national poet Mihai Eminescu “Priest of our wakening, the prophet of our times' signs !” – he is nowadays the spiritual patron of many highschools and schools of Romania. In his memory, at Brasov there is a statue near the Dramatic Theatre.
-
Mişu Popp
(born 1827, Braşov - deceased 1892, Braşov)
Mişu Popp was a famous Romanian painter, a representative of the Romanian academism. Son of a churches' painter, he was a remarkable portraitist and ecclesiastical painter. He studied at Vienna. In Braşov he painted the Church on Tocile; he is the author of the paintings of Araci, Râşnov, Satulung. For a while he painted churches in Wallachia together with Constantin Lecca. In 1865 he returns at Braşov. Among the most known works of the artist there are the portraits of some famous historical, political and cultural personalities: Mihai Viteazu, Alexandru Ioan Cuza, Mihail Kogalniceanu, Andrei Mureşianu.
-
Ioan Meşotă
(born 1837, Braşov - deceased 1878, Braşov)
Ioan Meşotă was „one of the most distinguished professors in Braşov – as described in a Romanian Encyclopaedia. He studied at the Universities of Vienna and Bohn, where he got his PhD in philosophy. Since 1861 he was a teacher at the Romanian Academic Gymnasium of Braşov. Author of manuals and promoter of the Romanian culture, Dr. Ioan Meşotă was director of the Romanian Central Schools and correspondent member of the Romanian Academy.
A national college of Brasov bears nowadays his name
-
Nicolae Teclu
(b. 1839, Braşov – d. 1916, Vienna)
Nicolae Teclu was a famous Romanian chemist, the inventor of the laboratory burner which bears his name, the ”Teclu” Lamp. He studied engineering, architecture, chemistry. He taught general chemistry and analytic chemistry at Vienne and contributed to the development of the world chemistry. He was member of the Romanian Academy. He invented laboratory devices for the methane detection and the preparation of the ozone. Nicolae Teclu was among the first Romanian chemists known at international level. Various educational institutions with chemistry profile of Romania bear nowadays his name. A street of Brasov bears the name ”Nicolae Teclu”.
-
Gheorghe Dima
(b. 1847, Braşov – d. 1925, Cluj)
Gheorghe (George) Dima was a personality of the Romanian music, also known abroad. Composer, conductor, Opera soloist, piano player and professor, Dima studied music at Braşov, Karlsruhe, Vienne, Graz, Leipzig. He was Opera soloist at Klagenfurt and Zürich, music teacher and chorus conductor at Braşov and Sibiu. He was director of the Gymnastic and Singing Schools of Brasov and the first director of the Conservatory of Cluj. He gathered and arranged folklore, had conferences, played in concerts as Opera soloists and accompanist piano player. He wrote articles and musical chronicles. He translated in Romanian and German various texts of lieder, cantatas, oratories, Opera librettos.
He received the first price of Mozart Stiftung Association of Salzburg (1880).
The Music Academy of Cluj bears nowadays his name. The name of Braşov's Philharmonic was ”Gheorghe Dima” since 1946 until the end of the last century. A street of his native town bears his name.
-
Ştefan Octavian Iosif
(b. 1875, Braşov – d. 1913, Bucharest)
Ştefan Octavian Iosif was a poet and a translator, founder member of the Romanian Writers’ Society. He studied in Braşov, Sibiu and Paris. He is 26 years old when he published his first poetry tomes (Patriarchals, Romances from Heine). He continues to publish poetry, translations from German poets and theatre. Along with his friend, the young writer Dimitrie Anghel, he publishes under the pseudonym A. Mirea original works and translations from French.
On his memory, a street of Brasov's centre bears nowadays his name. A bust representing the poet is located in the Central Park of the town and a memorial plaque bearing the poet’s effigy reminds the house where he lived, on Prundului Street.
-
Sextil Puşcariu
(born 1877, Braşov – d. 1948, Bran)
Sextil Puşcariu was a philologist and one of the biggest linguists of Romania, literary historian, pedagogue, musical and theatre chronicler, director of cultural institutions, publicist and Romanian academician.Sextil Puşcariu studied in Braşov, at the Romanian Gymnasium (the nowadays National College „Andrei Şaguna”), in Germany, at Leipzig, in France, at Paris, in Austria, at Vienna. He got the title of doctor in philosophy at the University of Leipzig, the docent distinction for Romanian philology at the University of Vienna. He was professor since 1906, the titular of the Romanian Language and Literature Chair and the dean of the Faculty of Philosophy of Cernăuţi. He founds and directs the newspaper Glasul Bucovinei (The Buconvina’s Voice) (1918), militates for the union of Bucovina and Romania. In 1919 he refuses the position of minister of Bucovina at Bucharest. He is appointed general commissary of the Directing Council concerning the organization of the University of Upper Dacia of Cluj, after the Union of Transylvania with Romania. He was the first Romanian rector of the University of Cluj, he was the founder of the Romanian Language Museum. He was a member of the Romanian delegation in the Nations League of Geneva, he was the Romania’s representative at the International Institute of Intellectual Cooperation under the Nations Society, member of the International Linguistics Committee, he directed the Review „Cultura” of Cluj, he was the director of the Romanian Institute of Berlin, the Rector of the Transylvanian University of Sibiu. Sextil Puşcariu is the author of more than 400 works of great scientific value, he initiated and coordinated the Dictionary of the Romanian language and the Romanian Linguistic Atlas. Among his works there also is „Braşovul de altădată” (The bygone Brasov”), an extremely documented and interesting description of the town.
In his memory, several educational institutions of the country bear nowadays his name. At Bran the authorities dedicated him a bronze bust.
-
Hans Mattis-Teutsch
(b. 1884, Braşov – d. 1960, Braşov)
Hans Mattis-Teutsch, a Brasov native of Magyar and German origin was a painter, sculptor and illustrator. He studied at the Decorative Arts Academy of Budapest and at the Royal Academy of Munich. His works combine the influences of various styles such as art nouveau, post-Impressionism, abstract expressionism, stylized figurative and constructivism. He taught at the Industrial Highschool of Braşov. In 1918 he joined the group "Abstrakte Gruppe der Sturm" and exhibited at Berlin. His works were admired and had a good reception among the art critics since his very first personal exhibition in 1920, in Bucharest. He was an active representative of the avant-garde in Romania, subsequently oriented towards the figurative art. Hans Mattis-Teutsch published the work „The Ideology of art - stability and action in the artistic creation” – expression of his realistic - socialist artistic phase.
In 1944 – 1945 he founded the association of the artists of Brasov, which became a subsidiary of the Artists' Union, which presided on several occasions.
Since 2006, The Highschool of Arts in Brasov bears his name.
-
Áprily Lajos
(born 1887, Braşov - deceased 1967, Budapest)
Áprily Lajos was an important Magyar poet, with a remarkable didactic activity.
The National College of Magyar language of Brasov, the successor of the Roman-Catholic Gymnasium, established in 1837 - bears his name.
-
Gyula Halász – Brassai
(b. 1899, Braşov – d. 1984, Èze, Alpes Maritimes)
Brassaï, (the pseudonym Gyula Halász jr., the Magyar translation of native of Brasov) was a famous French photographer artist, painter, sculptor, film maker and publisher of Magyar origin, born in Braşov. His friend, the writer Henry Miller, called him „the eyes of Paris”.
Brassai came for the first time in Paris when his was 3 and his father was teaching at Sorbonne. After the graduation at the Humanistic Highschool of Braşov he studied at the Academy of Arts in Budapest. After the end of World War I he joined the Magyar Red Army and in 1920 he resumed his studies at the Beaux-Arts Academy of Berlin-Charlottenburg. In 1924 he definitively established in Paris. The French poet Jacques Prévert and the American writer Henry Miller became some of his closest friends. Since 1929 Gyula Halász started to photograph Paris in its most interesting aspects. The first album, „Paris by night”, also meant his first big success. He dedicated some of his photographs to the celebrities of the epoch (Salvador Dali, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Jean Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir...).
He wrote 17 books, countless articles and a novel. Brassai was awarded with countless and important international titles and prizes.
Multicultural personality of the XXth century - Gyula Halász – Brassai received the title of Citizen of Honour of Brasov Municipality, awarded post – mortem
in 2009, for his briliant contribution to the cultural patrimony of both the
Bravov’s and international community.
-
Alexandru Surdu
(b. 24 February 1938, Braşov)
Alexandru Surdu is a Romanian philosopher, philosophy teacher and member of the Romanian Academy, president of the Philosophy, Theology, Psychology and Pedagogy Section of the Romanian Academy, director of the Philosophy and Psychology Institute „Constantin Rădulescu-Motru” of the Romanian Academy.
Alexandru Surdu was a student of „Andrei Şaguna” Highshool of Braşov, graduate of the Faculty of Philosophy within the University of Bucarest (1958-1963). The licence thesis, which received the maximum grade, was decisive for the assignment at the Institute of Philosophy within the Romanian Academy. Since 1964 he is a researcher at the Centre of Logic within the Romanian Academy.
He collaborated with famous Romanian and foreign philosophers, he published hundreds of works, participated at the most important speciality reunion; he is prize-winner of prestigious awards, starting from 1975, when he receives an Academy award.
After 1990 Alexandru Surdu occupied the position of editor in chief of the „Review of Philosophy” and „Revue roumaine de philosophie”, in 1992 he becomes president of the Central Department of the Transylvanian Association for the Romanian Literature and the Culture of the Romanian People - Astra and director of the review „Astra”, he is received as member of the Writers' Union of Romanian, Brasov subsidiary.
In 1996 he received the „Octav Şuluţiu” Prize of the Writers’ Union for critic, literary history and essay. In 2004 he was awarded with the National Order Religious Service with title of knight. In 2009 he was given the title of Citizen of Honour of Brasov Municipality for his contribution to the logic's history, the traditional and symbolic logic, the fundaments of sciences, the art philosophy and the history of the philosophy.
-
Gernot Nussbächer
(b. 1939, Braşov)
Gernot Nussbächer is a prestigious historian, archivist, writer of German expression. He studied history at the University of Cluj. He worked at the State Archives in Brasov, at the County Library and the Archives of the Black Church. Gernot Nussbächer is considered one of the most competent specialists in archives area.
He published dozens of books and brochures, hundreds of scientific articles, works about Brasov and other localities of Transylvania.
In 2009, the historian Gernot Nussbächer was given the Medal „Honterus”.
-
Ion Ţiriac
(b. 1939, Braşov)
Ion Ţiriac is a Romanian former professional tennis player, a former hockey player, nowadays an influent businessman in Germany and Romania.
He was member of the Romanian ice hockey team, with which he participated to the Winter Olympic Games of Innsbruck and to the Word Championship.
In 1970, he won along with Ilie Năstase the Tennis Tournament of Roland Garros. Along with Ilie Nastase, Guillermo Villas and Adriano Panatta he also won countless other international tennis tournaments, including the Tennis World Championship, Sao Paolo (1974). Ţiriac was member of the national Romanian team in Davis Cup between 1959 and 1978. For 9 years he was the manager
of Boris Becker, a tennis player of world class. Between 1998 and 2004, he was the president of the Romanian Olympic Committee.
Ion Ţiriac ranks among the richest Romanian businessmen, the owner of several companies, automotive and transports. He is the first Romanian included in the „Forbes” List of the world’s billionaires.
In 1997 he receives the title of Citizen of Honour of Brasov Municipality, as a token of gratitude and appreciation of his activity in supporting the community.
in economical, financial, business and charitable fields.
-
Hans Eckart Schlandt
(b. 1940, Braşov)
Hans Eckart Schlandt, a Saxon musician and teacher – among the most known and appreciated organists in Romania, since 1965 the coordinator of the pipe organ concerts hosted by the Black Church of Braşov.
He took his first piano lessons from his father, Walter Schlandt, concert performer piano player, music teacher and chorus conductor. He started to study the pipe organ, since he was 14, with the professor Victor Bickerich, and since 1957 at the pipe organ class of „Ciprian Porumbescu” Conservatory in Bucharest. From 1962 he was a music teacher at Brasov and in 1965 he obtained the pipe organ player position and conductor of the Black Church' chorus. During the totalitarian regime, when the religious music was not assented, he managed to ensure to continuity of the sacred music concerts inside the Black Church, frequented by a numerous public eager to find and enjoy its spiritual liberty.
Hans Eckart Schlandt founded in 1993 The „Bach” Youth Chorus, which he conducted till 2004, when the position was took in charge by his son, Steffen Markus Schlandt.
He has countless pipe organ concerts in Romania and abroad, he had a remarkable didactic activity; some of the pipe organ concerts interpreted by him have been recorded on several musical albums.
He is the laureate of several important prizes: The „Johann-Wenzel-Stamitz” Award (Mannheim, 2000),
The Prize of the Union of Musical Critics of Romania, the „Apollonia Hirscher” Award (Braşov, 2002), The „Honterus” Medal. Since September 2011 he is Citizen of Honour of Braşov Municipality.
-
Liviu Cornel Babeş
(b. Braşov, 1942 – d. Braşov, 1989)
Liviu Cornel Babeş was an electrician, talented amateur visual artist of Brasov, he became a hero on March 2nd 1989 when he burnt himself on Bradu Slope in the resort Poiana Brasov, as a protest gesture against the totalitarian regime of Romania. By his extreme gesture he wanted to attract the entire world attention upon the communist dictatorship of his country.
In 1996 he was given the title of Citizen of Honour of Brasov Municipality as a gratitude for the sacrifice he made for the liberty cause in an oppressive regime.
In 1997, Liviu Cornel Babeş was declared hero-martyr by low; in his memory a bronze plaque on pedestal was inaugurated in the courtyard of the Church in Poiana Braşov.
-
Horia Andreescu
(b. 1946, Braşov)
Horia Andreescu is a prestigious Romanian conductor. He studied at the Bucharest Conservatory, The Music Academy in Vienna, at Trier and Munich (with the famous conductor Sergiu Celibidache). He was conductor of the Philharmonic Orchestra of Ploiesti, main conductor of "George Enescu" Philharmonic, he was for many years director of the musical bands Radio, resident conductor at the Radio National Orchestra, associate professor of the National Music University Bucharest, he conducted big orchestras of the world. He is the founder of the Camera Orchestra „Virtuozii” („The Virtuosi”) of Bucharest.
Horia Andreescu has been given important awards and titles: the Critic’s Award at the Contemporary Music Biennale in Berlin, in 1997 the Musical Critics Union names him „The Conductor of the Year”, he received the Award of the National Committee UNESCO for Cultural Development (2002),
The National Order "For Merit" with title of Big Cross (2006).
Since 2006 he is Citizen of Honour of Brasov Municipality for special merits in his activity of promoting and developing the cultural-artistic values.