Simion Florea Marian Memorial House

The Simion Florea Marian Memorial House stands at Strada Simion Florea Marian no. 4, in the centre of Suceava, facing the park named after the folklorist. The building dates from the eighteenth century and originally belonged to the Kapri family, Armenian landowners; it appears in the land register of 1796 and is one of the few buildings from that century still standing in the city. Simion Florea Marian (1847-1907), a priest, folklorist and ethnographer and a full member of the Romanian Academy, bought the house on 12 August 1886 with the money from the Năsturel Herescu prize, awarded by the Academy in 1883 for his work "Ornitologia poporană română" (Romanian Folk Ornithology). He lived here until his death, teaching religion at the Greek Orthodox Gymnasium of Suceava (today the Ștefan cel Mare National College). In these years he also published his studies of weddings, birth and burial customs among Romanians. A memorial plaque was placed on the wall in 1932, and in 1935 his bronze bust by Gheorghe Bilan was set up in the park. The house has six rooms and was donated to the state by the folklorist's daughter, Maria Cărăușu, and her husband, Professor Mihai Cărăușu, together with furniture, photographs, books, manuscripts and family papers. The museum opened on 22 June 1974. Its documentary collection holds more than 10,000 volumes, over 450 runs of periodicals, first editions of Marian's works and letters from Vasile Alecsandri, Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu, Titu Maiorescu and other scholars of the time. The building is a historic monument (LMI code SV-IV-m-B-05696), and the museum is run by the Bukovina National Museum.