Sculeni (Yiddish: סקולען, Skulen) is a commune in Ungheni District, Moldova. It is composed of four villages: Blindești, Floreni, Gherman and Sculeni.[2] It sits on the Prut river which separates the Republic of Moldova from the omonimous region of Romania and has a border checkpoint to Romania. Across the Prut is a village also called Sculeni, with the Romanian side of the border checkpoint. At the 1930 census, Sculeni village consisted of three parts: Sculenii-Târg ("Sculenii Market", also known as Sculenii Noi, "New Sculeni") on the left bank of the Prut, and the two parts of Sculenii Vechi ("Old Sculenii", ori Sculeni village), on the right bank and the left, respectively.[3][4]
Sculeni | |
|---|---|
Commune | |
  Sculeni Location in Moldova | |
| Coordinates: 47°19′N 27°38′E / 47.317°N 27.633°E | |
| Country |  Moldova |
| District | Ungheni District |
| Population | |
• Total | 4,750 |
| Time zone | UTC+2 (EET) |
| • Summer (DST) | UTC+3 (EEST) |
| Website | https://ssculeni.wordpress.com/ |
History
editOn 22 February 1821 (O.S.), at the start of the Greek War of Independence, Filiki Eteria leader Alexander Ypsilantis, accompanied by several other Greek officers in Russian service, crossed the Prut river at Sculeni into the Danubian Principalities, two days before proclaiming at Iaşi that he had "the support of a great power" (meaning Russia).
The Battle of Sculeni was fought on 29 June 1821 in Sculeni between Ottoman forces and the Greek revolutionary forces raised by the Filiki Eteria led by Prince George Katakouzenos.[5] It came about as the result of Ottoman reprisals for Ypsilantis' expedition in the two Danubian Principalities.[6]
The Romanian boyar and heir apparent to the Moldavian throne Grigore Mihail Sturdza was born in Sculeni on 23 May [O.S. 11 May] 1821, during the chaos created by the Greek uprising. He was the son of Prince Mihail Sturdza, a scion of Wallachian and Moldavian nobility.
The town had an important Jewish community before World War II.[7] The town is the namesake of the Skulen Hasidic dynasty, as its founder, Eliezer Zusia Portugal, initially served as the town's rabbi. In 26–27 June 1941, some 400 Jews from the area were machine-gunned, half of them women, in what is known as the Sculeni Massacre, in a mass execution by the Romanian Army under the command of Gen. Ion Antonescu - the first major crime perpetrated against the Jews of the Soviet Union during Operation Barbarossa.[8][9]
Natives
edit- Mircea Chistruga (1948–2025), film director
- Olga Bogdanova (b. 1951), Soviet and Russian actress
- Andrei Eșanu (b. 1948), historian
- Wincenty (Morari) (b. 1953), cleric of the Russian Orthodox Church, Bishop of Tashkent and Uzbekistan and Metropolitan of Central Asia (since 2011)
- Eliezer Zusia Portugal (1898–1982), rabbi, first Rebbe of Skulen
- Yisroel Avrohom Portugal (1923–2019), Eliezer Zusia's son; rabbi, Rebbe of Skulen in Brooklyn
- Grigore Sturdza (1821–1901), boyar (noble), soldier, politician and adventurer
Literature
editSculeni (battle of Sculeni) is mentioned by Alexander Pushkin in his short story The Shot.
See also
editReferences
edit- ↑ Results of Population and Housing Census in the Republic of Moldova in 2014: "Characteristics - Population (population by communes, religion, citizenship)" (XLS). National Bureau of Statistics of the Republic of Moldova. 2017. Retrieved 2017-05-01.
- ↑ Clasificatorul unităților administrativ-teritoriale al Republicii Moldova (CUATM) (in Romanian)
- ↑ Ethnic map of the area in 1930, based on older map and the superimposed 1930 census data. Via wikimedia.org.
- ↑ Eșanu, Andrei; Eșanu, Valentina (2011). "Cu privire la pierderile Basarabiei în cel de-al Doilea Război Mondial. Studiu de caz: satul Sculeni, raionull Ungheni". In Dr. hab. Nicolae Enciu (ed.). In honorem Ion Șişcanu. Studii de istorie a românilor (PDF). Cahul. pp. 267–283 (268). Retrieved 25 March 2026 – via Instrumentul Bibliometric National.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) See expanded art. at Patrimoniul istoric, Revista Asociației Istoricilor “Nicolae Iorga” din Ungheni, NR. 2, Chișinău 2015, ISSN 2345-1637, via academia.edu. - ↑ Miller, William (1966). The Ottoman Empire and Its Successors, 1801-1927. Routledge. p. 69.
- ↑ Phillips, Walter Alison (1897). The War of Greek Independence, 1821 to 1833. Smith, Elder and Company. p. 43.
- ↑ Encyclopedia of Jewish Life (2001), pp. 1154-55: "Sculeni".
- ↑ Solonari, Vladimir (2015). Purificarea națiunii: dislocări forțate de populație și epurări etnice în România lui Ion Antonescu, 1940-1944 [Purification of the Nation: Forced Population Displacement and Ethnic Cleansing in Ion Antonescu's Romania, 1940-1944] (in Romanian). Polirom. p. 164. ISBN 978-973-46-5266-2.
- ↑ Pogor, Eugenia (27 January 2016). "Pur și simplu Moldova (emisiune). Masacrul evreilor din Sculeni" [Simply Put, Moldova (series). The massacre of the Jews in Sculeni] (in Romanian). Radio Europa Liberă Moldova (Radio Free Europe Moldova). Retrieved 24 March 2026. On Youtube here.
