Altitudine: 220 – 310 m
Populaţie: 10 225 loc (2011)
La Oraviţa se simte încă umbra barocului vienez. La fiecare pas pe care-l face, călătorul va fi cuprins de „Efectul Mozart” prin evenimente culturale de neuitat.
Evenimentele culturale din Oraviţa boemă sunt astăzi legate de cele doi oameni de seamă a culturii româneşti: Mihai Eminescu şi George Enescu. Poezia şi muzica sunt aici într-o îngemănare perpetuă a geniului românesc prin spectacole de neuitat pentru turiştii români şi străini. Veniţi în 15 ianuarie a fiecărui an la „Zilele Eminescu la Oraviţa”, în mijlocul cărora sunt cărturarii şi poeţii din Banatul Montan. Pe scena celui mai vechi edificiu teatral din România, Teatrului Vechi „Mihai Eminescu” din Oraviţa, în anul 1868, a jucat trupa lui Pascaly, avându-l ca sufleor pe marele poet al românilor Mihai Eminescu.
Reveniţi apoi în Oraviţa culturală la 5 noiembrie, când se desfăşoară Festivalul „George Enescu”, ca un omagiu adus marelui muzician român care, în ziua de 5 noiembrie 1931, a susţinut primul concert extraordinar de vioară pe scena orăviţeană.
„În Oraviţa, maestrul vine în 4 noiembrie după spectacolul de la Timişoara, fiind găzduit în cele două nopţi cărăşene de profesorul Carol Kanz. Concertul a avut loc joi, 5 noiembrie 1931, cu începere de la orele 21:00. Au fost prezenţi spectatori din tot Banatul, iar din Sasca Montană localnicii au venit cu şase căruţe frumos împodobite. Banchetul a avut loc la hotelul „Corona”, unde Kanz i-a făcut un portret magistral marelui artist.”, evocă de fiecare dată directorul Ionel Bota [Bota I., 2011]
La Oraviţa, în cadrul festivalului, se susţine mereu şi un concert extraordinar Enescu – Mozart, interpretat la pian de violoniştii Facultăţii de Muzică din Timişoara. Este momentul când se aminteşte de epopeea mozartiană în Oraviţa, prin scrisoarea trimisă de marele compozitor austriac Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart familiei Hofdeml, în primăvara anului 1789, pentru un împrumut de 100 de forinţi. „Scrisoarea păstrată la familia Talescu din Oraviţa (înainte de 1968) este scrisă pe hârtie poroasă, uşor îngălbenită, cu cerneală acum de culoare brun-ruginie, ceea ce arată vechimea ei. Este aproape sigur că Mozart a necesitat cei 100 de florini pentru proiectul său de călătorie în Germania, în oraşele Praga, Dresda, Leipzig, Postdam şi Berlin. Mozart şi-a făcut multe speranţe cu această călătorie, deoarece la Viena a fost într-o situaţie strâmtorată. Călătoria a durat din 8 aprilie 1789 până în 4 iulie 1789. Peste tot a avut legături muzicale şi a cântat în faţa unor personalităţi alese, dar s-a întors mai sărac, material şi artistic, decât a plecat. Scrisoarea de la Oraviţa a fost singura cunoscută prin care Mozart s-a adresat cancelarului judiciar Hofdeml.
How the letter arrived at Oraviţa is as well as interesting. After being built in 1816 and inaugurated in 1817, the old theatre in Oraviţa, small but extremely beautiful, realized in the Baroque Viennese style, attracted many theatre groups from the empire and all over the world. Among them was an ensemble led by Ludwig Duba, who, delighted by this mountain town, settled in Oraviţa and brought his sister-in-law, the opera singer Mathilde Chundi, to earn her living by giving singing and piano lessons. But unfortunately she was ill, and before she died in 1905, she gave the Talescu family this letter from Mozart, confessing that she had received it from one of her admirers.
In musical Oraviţa, „the holy purpose of music is to eliminate hatred, to quench passions, and to bring the hearts closer together in a warmth brotherhood, just as the great antiquity understood it, creating the myth of Orpheus” and how the great violinist and composer George Enescu wrote in his times.
Continuing the walk toward the centre of the town, you will see in front of the Greek Catholic Cathedral the „Oak Leaf” monument, erected in honour of the Empress Elizabeth of Austria, who came to Marila resort, near Oraviţa, renowned for its clean and healing air for those suffering from lungs ailments.
It is not possible to end the walk without visiting the first mountainous pharmacy’s museum from Romania: The Pharmacy called „The black eagle„, an estate of the Knoblauch family in Oraviţa. You will be surprised by the age and tradition of the medical care practiced in the Mountainous Banat.
Entering the museum, you will be impressed by the „vintage photography” of the main room where, in this space, time seems to have stopped two centuries ago. You will see the wooden, glass and porcelain „containers” with chemicals and medical substances were kept. The mould press is also very interesting, which was used for making pills from medicinal herbs. Visitors can admire the pharmacy utensils brought at that time from all the corners of the world: a functioning microscope, a laryngoscope kit manufactured in Vienna, but especially a cash register brought from Cleveland (USA), which can be seen today only in Western movies.
The Natural Pharmacy from the Mountainous Banat is related to the name, fame and professionalism of the Knoblauch family, a name for the history of Oraviţa and these places. In the imperial Banat, after 1718, the so-called „pharmacies of the hand” were opened for the medical assistance of the people (colonists and locals) who were doing hard work (metallurgy, mining, coal); such a loose-leaf network being also the Black Eagle (opened in 1753) among the Banat’s pharmacies. And on October 19, 1796, the act of ownership was signed by which the Mountains Directorate was selling the space and the equipment of the old Berg Apotheke (mountain pharmacy) from Oraviţa to Joannes Lederer; it is the location of the today’s pharmacy museum. It is the act attesting the opening of the first mountainous pharmacy in Banat and the entire Romanian space. After Lederer’s death in 1819, the following year, on 1 September 1820, Karl Knoblauch buys from Lederer’s widow the Oraviţa pharmacy along with the four „pharmacies of hand / branches” situated at New Moldova, Sasca Montană, Steierdorf-Anina and Dognecea.
Looking at the crest from1486, as the unique emblem of the Knoblauch family all over the world, the attention is drawn by the three stalks of garlic cloves (knoblauch means garlic in Romanian) arranged in oblique crosses. The pharmacy building has its oldest representation in an engraving dating to 1838 and realized by Richard Puchta.
The Knoblauch family comes from a Swiss canton. The first pharmacist of the well-known Oravița family, Karl Knoblauch, was born on 28 January, 1797, as the son of the engineer Augustin Filip, the director of the blast furnaces and mint of Ciclova Montană. He studied medicine at the University of Vienna. You can read in the pharmacy’s library about the „recipes”, used for the preparation of medicines from different medicinal herbs, greatly valued all over Europe. In the pharmacy lab in 1838, Karl Knoblauch and his friend, doctor Gheorghe Roja, prepared for the first time the anti-smallpox vaccine and applied it successfully to a young man from Ilidia.
Karl also collaborates with Pavel Vasici in that time for the analysis of the thermal water from Ciclova Montană and supports the opening of the Oraviţa Brewery. He also supports the Schott brothers in the collection of Carrasean folklore, whose fairy tales, subsequently copied by Baron Kunisch, have inspired Mihai Eminescu’s Lucifer.
Karl Knoblauch’s heirs keep the Oraviţa pharmacy open until 1974, when the last descendant of the family migrates legally to Germany.
Inside the pharmacy you will also see the pharmacy logo, dating from 16 February 1855, with the name „The Black Eagle”.