The Monument of the Voivodes (Grupul Statuar al Voievozilor) is an ensemble of eight statues in Voivodes Park, beside the Students’ House of Culture. Arranged in four pairs, the figures represent Dragoș Vodă and Alexander the Good, Stephen the Great and Michael the Brave, Petru Rareș and John the Terrible, and Vasile Lupu and Dimitrie Cantemir.
The statues were created in the 1930s for the King Ferdinand I University Foundation, now the Mihai Eminescu Central University Library. Architect Constantin Iotzu had planned to place four pairs of rulers around the upper part of the new building, but concerns about the weight of the stone sculptures led to their installation nearby instead. The original ensemble included King Carol I and King Ferdinand I rather than Petru Rareș and John the Terrible. The surviving original statues are works by several sculptors: Ion Jalea created Dragoș Vodă and Michael the Brave, Ion Iordănescu created Alexander the Good, Ioan C. Dimitriu-Bârlad created Stephen the Great and Dimitrie Cantemir, and Mihai Onofrei created Vasile Lupu.
After the abolition of the monarchy in 1947, the communist authorities removed and destroyed the statues of Carol I and Ferdinand I. The six surviving figures stayed near the former foundation until 1968, when they were moved to the small park beside the newly built Students’ House of Culture and regrouped into new pairs. Two replacement statues were commissioned for the missing royal figures, but they were added only later, in 1983: Petru Rareș and John the Terrible, created by Ion Dămăceanu and Iftimie Bârleanu. Their addition completed the eight-figure ensemble seen in the park today.
