Mizil is a town in Prahova County, Muntenia, Romania. Located in the southeastern part of the county, it lies along the road between the cities of Ploiești and Buzău, and to the northeast of the national capital, Bucharest. Its position led it to become a thriving market town beginning in the 18th century, before a long period of economic decline began in the early 20th century. Agriculture gave way to industry as the chief employment under the Communist regime, but the town has continued to face difficulties in the wake of a late-1990s deindustrialisation.
Culture
The town houses two high schools, three primary schools and five kindergartens. One high school is focused on physics, chemistry, biology and computer science, while the other prepares students to become technicians.
Mizil has three historic Orthodox churches. The oldest, dedicated to the Holy Trinity, dates to the late 18th century and is in Fefelei. Another one, dedicated to John the Baptist, is in the town centre and was built in 1857. The building is cross-in-square in form and Byzantine and Gothic in style, with Renaissance touches. Its original painting was lost; a restoration took place in 1916. The iconostasis is sculpted out of linden wood and covered with gold leaf in folk art fashion. A third church, consecrated to the Dormition of the Theotokos and located in the town square, is from 1865. Among its sacred objects is a wooden blessing cross featuring silver filigree work and twenty-four red gems; this is from the end of the 19th century and appears to be the work of an anonymous artist from the Russian school. Additionally, there are four 19th-century roadside crosses, two of which are considered historic monuments by the Culture Ministry.
A monument dedicated to the troops of the 72nd Mizil Infantry Regiment, who fought during the Romanian Campaign of World War I (1916-1917), stands in the town. Built in 1921, the pedestal is 1.8 m high and the sculptures reach 2.7 m. They depict a woman in folk costume embodying the Fatherland, with her right hand raised in salute and her left holding the standard; a soldier and a woman sitting before her, the latter with an open book on her knees and representing History. There is a bronze plaque showing a battle scene, another featuring an inscription, and others naming the 1190 officers and enlisted men who died in battle.
There is a public library. There is also a cultural house, built in 1965-1966. This has 384 seats and a stage of around 50m2; the building was modernised in the mid-2000s. Social and cultural activities take place there, with well-known theatrical troupes occasionally performing. There is a children’s chess club in the house, and chess can also be played seasonally in the town park. The town’s festival days take place during October.
The playwright Ion Luca Caragiale was a friend of mayor Condeescu, whom he parodied in his work; the latter’s conversations with Caragiale and with Mihai Eminescu‘s brother Matei, a soldier assigned to Mizil and who became the mayor’s brother-in-law, convinced him to build a theatre. It had 200 seats and opened in 1895; among the plays staged were Caragiale’s. After falling into a state of degradation, it was demolished in 1968. A cinema used to operate in Mizil; this was sold to a company that promised to continue screening films but did not do so.
Aside from Caragiale, the journalist Geo Bogza, writing after the town’s economic decline had begun, helped impress on the public Mizil’s image as a place where nothing important ever happens, in a 1938 reportage titled 175 de minute la Mizil (“175 Minutes in Mizil”) and summarised as “the adventure of the banal”.[29][4] Other literary portrayals have been undertaken by local writers, including the poets Mihai Negulescu and Petre Strihan; the journalist and poet George Ranetti (Romeo și Julieta la Mizil, “Romeo and Juliet in Mizil”); Joachim Botez (Însemnările unui Belfer, “Notes of an Idle Rich Man”; Minerva la Mizil, “Minerva at Mizil”; De la Piatra la Mizil, “From Piatra to Mizil”; Împușcat la Mizil, “Gunned Down in Mizil”); and the novels of Cosmin Manolache since 2000, including Ce față cumplită am (“What a Cruel Face I Have”)