Mioarele, formerly known as Mățău, is a commune in Argeș County, Muntenia, Romania. Located 4 kilometers southeast of Câmpulung, Primăria Mioarele. Informații. Prezentare comună at the Argeș County Council site on the way to Târgoviște, it touches both the Argeș River valleyIoana Proca Floria, "Splendorile naturii. Punctul fosilifer de la Suslănești", in Magazin, Vol. XLVIII, Issue 13, March 2005, p. 10 and the banks of its Argeșel tributary.Dinu, p. 285; Nicolescu et al., p. 56Dan Simonescu, "Din istoria folclorului și folcloristicii. Folcloristul C. Rădulescu-Codin (1875—1926)", in Revista de Folclor, Issue 4/1957, p. 102 It is composed of five villages: Mățău (the commune center), with Chilii and Cocenești, as one cluster; Suslănești, the oldest surviving village, is located farther to the east, alongside Aluniș. The commune, like Câmpulung itself, sits just below the Southern Carpathians, and includes Mățău peak, held as the tallest hill in Romania, as well as sediments with fossilized fish from the Oligocene period. Mățău and especially Suslănești are traditional centers for horticulture, as well as for the related plum-brandy industry.
The area engaged in commerce since Antiquity, when it was used as a trading post by the Dacians. Its history remained obscure during the early medieval interlude, and down to the foundation of an early Romanian polity, though archeological finds suggest that the defunct village of Hobaia, located on commune grounds, was inhabited as early as the 10th century AD. Toponymic clues have led historians to suppose that Mioarele's inhabitants included Early Slavs and Cumans, and that some part of the village may be known in written records from 1401 or 1402. A component of Muscel County in Wallachia, Suslănești was first mentioned in 1503, due to its participation in trade with the Transylvanian Saxons; it and Hobaia were inhabited by yeomen—some of whom advanced into Muscel's boyardom, while others became their serfs, and then their sharecroppers. While Hobaia was destroyed in mysterious circumstances, a dominant clan, the Jumăreas, emerged at Suslănești during the 17th century. The Jumărea ascendancy coincided with a regional migration, at the end of which Mățău was established as a secondary hamlet.
This new settlement thrived while Suslănești went into a relative decline, its land encroached upon by several monastery estates and boyar families—including the Rucăreanus, who had a long feud with the Jumăreas and the other remaining yeomen. Large property was consolidated under the Kingdom of Romania, down to a land reform in 1944. Present-day Mioarele was noted as a scene of heavy fighting during the Romanian withdrawal in World War I, and was vandalized by the Central Powers during a two-year occupation (1916–1918). It emerged from the war as a hub of agrarian politics and an electoral pool for the National Peasants' Party. The decline of the peasant class was curtailed when locals were encouraged to cultivate themselves and advance socially, including by migrating into other areas of the country. Driven by schoolteachers such as Ion Vișoianu and Ion Gh. Nicolaescu-Mățău, this effort made Mățău and Suslănești stand out as the ancestral homeland for a large number of cultural and political notabilities; figures who trace their origin to the area include Muscel's Prefect Alexandru Mușetescu, literary scholar Dan Simonescu, and writer Tudor Mușatescu.
The education-driven institutional modernization was doubled from the 1940s by attempts to introduce intensive horticulture and improve transportation. Such objectives were realized by the communist regime, which incorporated the villages under a single commune in 1956–1967, and made it part of Argeș County in 1968; it also introduced the collectivization of farmlands, with a large-scale cultivation of orchards, and conscripted local youth in projects of road modernization. During its late stages, the regime completed the national road 73, which goes around Mioarele. After the Romanian Revolution of 1989, the commune remained underdeveloped due to water deficiencies, though it also completed Argeș's first-ever ski slope, in 2007.
Geography Mioarele is noted for its pastures and Prunus domestica orchards, being locally famous for the "white plums of Suslănești" (prune albe de Suslănești).Dinu, pp. 285, 291 As of 2023, its surface area is 33 square kilometers; it borders Câmpulung to the south and west, Stoenești to the east, Boteni to the south, Poienari to the south and west, Bilcești, a part of Valea Mare-Pravăț, also to the west. In addition to being located on the Argeș, the commune also straddles the border between the Argeș Hills (called muscele) and the Southern Carpathians; these are reported to include oil sands that reflect their geological origin in the Oligocene and Tethys Ocean.
With a height of 1,017 meters, Mățău Hill is rated as the tallest hill in all of Romania.Gabriel Tudor, "100 de locuri de văzut în România. Dealul Mățău", in Magazin, Vol. LXV, Issue 5, February 2022, p. 7 Olga Andronachi, "Comuna Mioarele suferă de sete!", in Ziarul Argeșul, July 29, 2021 The eponymous village, central to Mioarele, sits atop this hill, overlooking the corresponding Câmpulung Depression, and spreads over several kilometers.N. Floria, "Drumeții și popasuri. Depresiunea Câmpulungului", in Magazin, Vol. LII, Issue 12, March 2009, p. 7 Another one of the hills is Hobaia (or Marlauz)Dinu, p. 285 in Suslănești, which has a large trove of fossilized Oligocene fish, and is maintained as a scientific reserve. The locality is also close to Mateiaș Hill,Marius Pop, Dan Simonescu, "Scriitorii trebuie să simtă activ necesitatea contactului cu lumea...", in Argeș, Vol. XVII, Issue 9, December 1982, p. 6 and has direct views over three Carpathian ranges: Piatra Craiului, Iezer, and Făgăraș.
History Early history In a 1961 piece, local historian Nicolae Nasta summarized the results of archeological finds in and around Suslănești, reporting that, during Dacian rule in the 3rd century BC, the area served as a storage spot for wine and oil, imported from the Greek cities on the Black Sea coast.Dinu, p. 286. See also Nicolescu et al., pp. 103, 163 According to a news item of 2022, Mățău Hill was still hosting a yearly ceremony called "Sumedru's Fire", which may be of a pre-Christian origin. The peak's name is the subject of scholarly dispute, with theories indicating very different origins. The favored explanation is that it comes from the Early Slavs, and that it originally meant "bear's village" (it may also refer to the locals' physical built, since, as a common noun, it is used to mean "wide-shouldered man"); others see it as originating from a Modern Greek term for "nipple", in reference to the hill's general shape.Nicolescu et al., pp. 116, 165–166 Historian Ștefan Pascu proposes yet another origin, from the Bulgarian Мацо (Matso), a pet form of "Matthew".Nicolescu et al., p. 165
The digs at Hobaia, a village that once existed just east of Suslănești's territory, were also said to have uncovered ruins dating back to the 10th century AD. Local historian Ion Nania argues that, during the Early Middle Ages in Romania, Mățău-Mioarele was an area of Cuman settlement, and as such briefly included in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Cumania. He uses as evidence historical sources which discuss a rump "Cumania" as being located east of the Olt River, as well seemingly Cumanic place-names, such as "Marlauz" in Suslănești.Ion Nania, "Cruceburg — Episcopatul Cumaniei — Cetatea Dîmboviței — Cetățeni", in Archiva Valachica. Studii și Materiale de Istorie și Istorie a Culturii, 1976, p. 86 Suslănești, which may have been originally known as "Negurești" or "Neguțești", is the only locality in Romania to use this name. Of uncertain origin, it may stem from a Slavic term, соуслъ (rendered in Romanian as suslă)—referring to a byproduct of distillation in the process of making plum brandy; a competing theory sees it as a contraction of sus la lână ("up there with the wool"), suggesting ancient origins as a sheep-shearing station.Dinu, pp. 285–286. See also Nicolescu et al., p. 103 Such theories are disputed by some linguists, who note that the suffix -ănești is almost always indicative of a name derived form anthroponymy. They suggest that the place was named for Suslea, from the Slavic name Suslo(v).Nicolescu et al., p. 103
Mățău and its environs entered recorded history as a settlement in what was then Muscel County, part of the Romanian polity known as Wallachia. One document, dated 1401 or 1402, mentions Ohaba (literally: "fiscal immunity") on the Argeșel, a name which may have been transformed into Hobaia ("ravine"), and is perhaps the oldest mention of any part of the present-day commune.Nicolescu et al., pp. 32, 55–56, 72, 75, 121, 164 An indirect report that a village existed in Mățău during the mid-to-late 15th century is provided by the mention of two locals serving as soldiers for Wallachian Prince Vlad the Impaler.Nicolescu et al., p. 161 Suslănești and the surrounding areas were located on the border with Angevin Hungary, and engaged in trade with its Transylvanian Saxons. In 1503, the commercial register of Corona mentioned the village (called Suslanest or Suschlanest in Saxon dialect) as one of 28 Wallachian localities it had direct and permanent exchanges with.Radu Manolescu, "Schimbul de mărfuri între Țara Romînească și Brașov în prima jumăte a secolului al XVI-lea", in Studii și Materiale de Istorie Medie, Vol. II, 1957, pp. 185–186, 196. See also Dinu, p. 286; Nicolescu et al., p. 163 This marks the first attestation of the locality; the 1503 record also specifically mentions locals Buda and Tudor bringing wels, beeswax and hides to the markets in Corona.Dinu, p. 286; Nicolescu et al., p. 163 Some time after, in July 1512, a village known as Negomirești, probably baptized after its founder Negomir, was also attested near Mățău Hill.Nicolescu et al., pp. 96, 163
The future commune was originally divided into yeomen (moșneni) and serfs (clăcași)—the former owned the entire future commune, roughly divided into five plots.Cici-Iordache Adam, Radu Crețeanu, "Istoria noastră, viața noastră. Genealogii țărănești", in Flacăra, Vol. XXXIII, Issue 8, February 1984, p. 22 According to sociological research carried out by Ioan Șucu in the 1970s, the yeomen lineages are traceable to medieval times, whereas the serf families are historically invisible to 1746, when Prince Constantine Mavrocordatos abolished serfdom, and lifted them into the class of sharecroppers. Traces of Hobaia were rediscovered by accident in July 1939, along with the ruins of a Wallachian Orthodox church, with four tombs from the mid-16th century. The church was positively dated to the early 16th century, while the bodies buried were tentatively identified as belonging to the lowest caste of the boyar aristocracy, "since nothing is mentioned of their ranks."Brătulescu, pp. 5, 9; Dinu, pp. 286, 287 The spot was re-investigated by archeologists in July 1959. They discovered 19 tombs, dating from the 15th and 16th centuries, and valuable artifacts. These include a ring belonging to Spatharios Cazan, indicative of a much higher boyar ranking and decorated with the double-headed eagle.Dinu, pp. 286–287, 288
Jumărea ascendancy