Yesterday, July 4, 2013, at Elisabeta Palace in Bucharest, the Royal House of Romania granted, for the first time to a professional organization in Romania, the High Patronage of His Majesty King Mihai I of Romania. This high distinction was awarded to the Romanian Geographical Society. The ceremony, which took place in the presence of His Royal Highness Prince Radu, was attended by 30 representatives of the Romanian Geographical Society from the university centers of Bucharest, Iași, Cluj-Napoca, Timișoara, and Deva.
This event represented a particularly significant moment for the Romanian Geographical Society, for all geographers and its supporters, as it marked the official resumption of emotional and principled ties with the Royal House. This moment of great importance integrates into the long series of events recorded in the pages of a prodigious history, which began 138 years ago, on June 15, 1875, when, in the presence of Prince Carol I, the Romanian Geographical Society was founded. It was later recognized by a law adopted by Parliament in 1897 and promulgated by Royal Decree (no. 588/1897) as a “Society with moral personality and a public utility institution.“
Currently, the Romanian Geographical Society continues the activity and legally preserves the tradition and the material and spiritual patrimony of the Romanian Geographical Society, under all the names it has operated throughout time. The Statute under which the Society operates today preserves the spirit and values of the Romanian Geographical Society as they were inscribed in the Statute of March 18, 1938, with the necessary improvements and updates, as a sign of appreciation for the Society’s history before the communist dictatorship. The declared and assumed purpose of the Society’s Statute is to contribute to the progress of Geography and Romanian geographers in school and science, in Romanian and universal culture.
President of the Romanian Geographical Society,
Prof. Dr. Mihai Ielenicz
Photo: Daniel Angelescu / Royal House of Romania