Homage to Stefan the Great

Moldovan writers and City Hall officials laid flowers to the monument to Stefan the Great and Holy on Wednesday,July 2, the day when it is 504 years since the great prince's death, Info-prim Neo reports. “We are the ones who must pick up the sword left by Steven the Great,” the president of the Writers Union, Mihai Cimpoi, has said. The academician has reminded this year it is 125 years since unveiling the statute to Stefan the Great in Iasi. Chisinau's mayor, Dorin Chirtoaca, has said it is nice that “we are careful concerning Stefan the Great, regardless of the position we occupy or of the political belief we have.” “Thanks God, Stefan the Great is homaged by everybody in Moldova and there are no contradictions here,” Dorin Chirtoaca says. The poet Arcadie Suceveanu has said Stefan the Great has become, in time, the big symbol of the Romanians from this territory and from the entire Romanian space. “Especially in Moldova, Stefan the Great is a tutelary, spiritual and political symbol. “We should erase the connotation of separatism and of primitive Moldovanism from Stefan's image and we should confer this symbol its genuine significance – he is a symbol of Romanian patriotism, a big historic and and spiritual symbol of all the Romanians,” the writer said. The event has been attended by writers as Iulian Filip, Valeriu Matei and the folklore singers conducted by Andrei Tamazlacaru. The Chisinau local administration has been represented by vice mayors, district office chiefs, direction heads and mayors of suburban localities.