Icoane ruseşti, ţărani răsculaţi şi politică protecţionistă în Imperiul Habsburgic la 1784-1785

Abstract

In the days immediately following the start of Horea's Uprising, three Russian icon merchants were arrested in the Aiud fair, suspected of being among those who had incited the peasants to revolt. Some of the icons that might have been sold at the time are in the collection of the Alba Iulia Museum. Their research followed rumours that merchants were distributing their wares with the announcement of an imminent Russian attack and that anyone who could not show such icons to prove they were a true Christian would be killed. The inquiry ordered by Emperor Joseph II after the suppression of the rebellion confirmed the clever marketing of the Russian merchants, who were banned from entering the Empire from 28 July 1785. In the following years, glass painting - a craft that was just taking off in the central provinces of the Habsburg Empire - would conquer the eyes of every Transylvanian Romanian, while cheap Russian icons would invade the Romanian village world outside the Carpathians.