#Exhibit of the Month

One of the great technical achievements that revolutionized the idea of time and space, opening a new era in the history of communication, is telegraphy. It is based on the transmission of electrical signals through a cable over long distances, allowing people to communicate instantly. The telegraph spread very quickly and a network of wires stretched around the world.

In 1837, the American painter and physicist Samuel Morse invented the first electromagnetic device for telegraphy, patented in 1840. To send messages by wire, Morse developed in 1838 a simple code of dots and dashes, which represented the letters of the alphabet, known as "Morse code ".

Both Morse code and the telegraph machine were improved over time, with the telegraph becoming the most widespread system of communication and information transmission for more than a century, until the advent of the Internet. The telegraph system consisted of a series of stations repeaters along the transmission line route. Each station had an operator who received and transmitted messages by telegraph. The Morse machine transmitted about 25 words per minute, which were recorded in code on a paper tape. The operator in charge of transmitting the message would decode it and write it on paper using a special typewriter.

In Bessarabia, the telegraph entered in 1860: on April 8, the Bender telegraph station began its activity, and on April 24, the one in Chisinau, following the construction of the first Odesa-Chisinau-Leova telegraph line. Currently, telegraph services have been discontinued. The only ones who still use coded communication are radio amateurs.

The Morse telegraph machine shown comes from the Osinoostrovsky electrotechnical plant, Soviet Union, and dates back to 1934. The exhibit was restored by Mihail Culașco.

Virtual Tour

Exhibitions

“Ecclesiastical Flag of Stephen the Great from the Collection of National Museum of History of Romania, Bucharest”

August 27 - September 10, 2011

The National Museum of Archaeology and History of Moldova presented on 27 August 2011, in the framework of an extraordinary exhibition, a masterpiece from the collection of the National Museum of History of Romania - the ecclesiastical flag of the Stephen the Great.

The exhibition, which was held under the high patronage of Vladimir Filat, the Prime Minister of the Republic of Moldova, was organized by the Ministry of Culture of Republic of Moldova, Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of Romania, Romanian Cultural Institute "Mihai Eminescu", National Museum of Archaeology and History of Moldova, and the National Museum of History of Romania, with the official support of the Government of the Republic of Moldova and the Government of Romania.

The event was dedicated to the 20th anniversary of the Independence of Moldova.

Along with this valuable ecclesiastical object, the exhibition included several panels with information about restoring of the flag of Stephen the Great and its recovery in 1917.

The exhibition could have been visited from August 27 to September 10, 2011.

Description

The particular exhibit is Byzantine embroidery of 15^th century. The ecclesiastical flag has dimensions of 1.24 m x 0.95 m and depicts the iconographic image of Holy Great Martyr George, who is considered a symbol of military victory. The iconography and chronological dating of the object initially led to the misconception that this was a battle flag of Prince Stephen the Great, but the absence of the coat of arms of Moldova, a characteristic of a military flag, rejected this hypothesis.

The embroidery depicts St. George seated on a throne with red cushion, with knees slightly apart and feet rested on a winged dragon with three heads. In his right hand the saint holds the hilt of a sword, and in his left hand he holds its blade. Composition of the figure of the saint is oval. He has curly hair and wears a crown with nine rosettes, decorated with precious stones and pearls and supported by two angels. The left angel holds in his right hand a sword, and the right angel holds in his right hand a shield. St. George wears a gray military tunic over a green long shirt and sandals with straps crossed at the calves.

In the top right and left corners there is embroidered an inscription in Greek: "Saint George from Ca(p)padocia". But the inscription does not mention that the flag had been given by Stephen the Great to the Zograf Monastery on Mount Athos, as was common at that time. The embroidery is made of red silk, faded by time and damaged in old years, when, through ignorance, monks from the Zograf Monastery on Mount Athos replaced it on a piece of low-quality velvet.

Around the edge of the cloth there is an inscription in Old Slavonic with the prince's (Stephen the Great) prayer to the saint: "Oh, subjected to torture and invincible Great Martyr Saint George, who are quick defender and helper in need and disaster and ineffable joy of those afflicted, receive this prayer of your humble servant Stephen, Prince of Moldova by the grace of God, keep him well in this century and in the future with the prayers of those who worship you, be glorified forever. Amen. Made in 7008 (1500), and in 43^rd year of his reign".

History of recovery of the object

In the spring of 1917, when Romania was at war, through the efforts of the Romanian Consul General in Thessaloniki G. C. Ionescu and with the assistance of French General Maurice Sarrail, the Kingdom of Romania recovered this precious object from the Zograf Monastery.

The initiative of its recovery belonged to the great politician Ion C. Bratianu (1864 - 1927), who, on February 1917, as the President of the Council of Ministers and Minister of Foreign Affairs, sent a ciphered telegram to the Romanian Legation in Athens, demanding in imperative tone: "Do everything possible to get the flag of Stephen the Great".

The similar demand was also made on February 26, 1917 by the Secretary General of the Ministry of War, General Gheorghe Burghele, who addressed the Foreign Affairs Ministry to take necessary steps to bring the flag to the country. Following his recourse to French General Maurice Sarrail, commander of allied armies in Thessaloniki, the latter ordered the Franco-Russian detachment in the Holy Mountain to recover the flag and send it to the French General Staff. On 25 March 1917, the Romanian Consul General in Thessaloniki G. C. Ionescu communicates to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that the French general gave him the flag and he keeps it and expects the orders from the Romanian authorities.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs asked Consul Ionescu to send the flag to the Romanian Legation in Paris on board of a French warship. On April 29, 1917, the flag was taken into custody in Paris by Minister Alexandru Em. Lahovary. He proposed to submit it to a bank, because it was dangerous to send "this precious trophy from here to Iasi" at the time when a part of Romania was occupied by the Central Powers. Finally, on 22 February 1920, the Ministry of War stated that the flag of Stephen the Great was transmitted to the Great General Staff to be submitted to the Military Museum.

Restoration

The flag of Stephen the Great was subjected to extensive restoration. Initially, the embroidery was made on silk fabric duplicated with linen fabric in order to support metal thread embroidery and successive layers that shape the entire composition. The silk foundation deteriorated in course of time was replaced by monks with velvet by means of cutting and pasting the embroidery to the new foundation with organic glue. It was entirely inappropriate intervention that affected the original state of the object. The process of restoration recently conducted in the National Museum of History of Romania consisted of the separation the object from the velvet foundation, cleaning the back of embroidery of organic glue, total cleaning of the object, fixing the embroidery on a new basis of natural silk, sewing with silk threads and re-embroidery in the lower part (the dragon's heads), and overlay of a tulle prepared in advance for protection and finishing.