Pogor House (Vasile Pogor Museum), Iași

Pogor House stands at 4 Strada Vasile Pogor in Iași. It was built in the middle of the nineteenth century by Vasile Pogor senior and his wife Zoe: CIMEC dates it to around 1850, while other sources give 1855-1857. Their son, Vasile Pogor, was one of the founders of the Junimea literary society, established in Iași in 1863. The house is closely tied to the history of Junimea: many of the society's meetings took place here, although it also met at Titu Maiorescu's and at the Negruzzi family's, and from 1867 to 1885 it was the seat of the journal „Convorbiri literare”. Members of the circle included Titu Maiorescu, Petre P. Carp, Mihai Eminescu, Ion Creangă, Ion Luca Caragiale and Ioan Slavici. In 1901 the house was sold to Princess Maria Moruzzi, who altered the entrance and façades; it later served as a residence of the Moruzzi and Brătianu families, a military command post and offices of state institutions. On 26 December 1972 the building became the Vasile Pogor Museum, part of the Iași Museum Complex. The literature museum, founded in 1971 as a section of that complex, became an independent institution on 1 October 1990 and since 2015 has been called the National Museum of Romanian Literature Iași. Its headquarters were long in Pogor House and since 2021 have been in the House of Museums (Casa Muzeelor), at 6 Strada Vasile Alecsandri. It also runs other memorial houses, including Ion Creangă's Bojdeuca, the Mihail Sadoveanu, Otilia Cazimir and George Topârceanu memorial houses, the Mihai Eminescu Museum and the Vasile Alecsandri Memorial House at Mircești. After restoration work between 2018 and 2021, the Vasile Pogor Museum reopened on 22 March 2022 with a new permanent exhibition devoted entirely to the Junimea society, including digital displays and an interactive panel. The building is a historic monument (LMI code IS-II-m-B-04358).