Suceava is the largest city and the seat of Suceava County, situated in the historical region of Bukovina, north-eastern Romania, and at the crossroads of Central and Eastern Europe. During the late Middle Ages, from 1388 to 1564, the city was the capital of the Principality of Moldavia.
From 1775 to 1918, Suceava was controlled by the Habsburg Monarchy, initially part of its Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, then gradually becoming the third most populous urban settlement of the Duchy of Bukovina, a constituent land of the Austrian Empire and subsequently a crown land within the Austrian part of Austria-Hungary. During this time, Suceava was an important, strategically-located commercial border town with the then Romanian Old Kingdom (Romanian: Vechiul Regat, German: Altreich).
In the wake of World War I, after 1918, along with the rest of Bukovina, Suceava became part of the then newly enlarged Kingdom of Romania. After the end of World War II, the city slowly underwent a process of communist urbanization which increased its population about tenfold throughout the decades before the 1989 Romanian Revolution. It became a municipality (Romanian: municipiu) in 1968.
The Seat Fortress of Suceava
Suceava is the place of several medieval sites that are closely linked to the history of the former Principality of Moldavia. By far the most significant (and at the same time the most well preserved one) is the Seat Fortress of Suceava (Romanian: Cetatea de Scaun a Sucevei) or Suceava Citadel, a medieval castle situated on the eastern edge of the contemporary city.
Șcheia Fortress
On the north-western edge of the contemporary city, on a hilltop, there is another medieval citadel known as Șcheia Fortress (Romanian: Cetatea Șcheia) or the Western Fortress of Suceava (Romanian: Cetatea de Apus a Sucevei). Unlike the Seat Fortress, Șcheia Fortress has left nothing but some ruined walls. The citadel proper was built during the reign of Petru Mușat during the late 14th century, but was short-lived, given that it was dismantled during the early 15th century, in the time of Alexander I of Moldavia. Șcheia Fortress, just like the main Seat Fortress, was part of the fortification system built in the medieval Principality of Moldavia during the late 14th century.
Museums
The first museum in Suceava was opened in 1900, by the initiative of some local intellectuals. In the beginning, the museum included only a few collections that were obtained as a result of the researches and excavation works at the Seat Fortress of Suceava. The museum was expanded and developed over time and became an important cultural institution, currently named Bukovina Museum (Romanian: Muzeul Bucovinei). It has several departments and administers the medieval sites of the Seat Fortress, Șcheia Fortress and the Princely Court, local museums (Bukovina Village Museum, the history, ethnographic, and natural sciences museums), the memorial houses of Simion Florea Marian in Suceava, Nicolae Labiș in Mălini, Eusebiu Camilar in Udești, Ciprian Porumbescu in Stupca, and two traditional houses located in Solca and Bilca.
The oldest department of Bukovina Museum is the history museum, which was the backbone for creating a county museum at Suceava. This museum presents the local history of Suceava and Moldavia in the context of Romanian national history. The exhibits of the history museum and the offices of Bukovina Museum are located in a historic building, in the city center. The building, which hosted the prefecture of Suceava County during the interwar period, was built between 1902 and 1903. Since 1968, it houses the history museum. In 2014, the building and the museum entered an extensive program of modernization, rehabilitation, and expansion.
