#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

“Promoters of National Identity and Values”

August 27 - September 30, 2022

On August 27, 1991, history gave us a chance - the chance to become free. And the Bessarabian Romanians proved by deed that they want to be masters of their own destiny. For them, independence in those days was identified with the exit from the darkness of the Soviet empire and the hope for a prosperous future. The will of hundreds of thousands of people gathered in the Great National Assembly Square in Chisinau won. The Bessarabian Romanians won the great battle for the tricolor, for the state language and the Latin script, they returned to national traditions and values, they regained their right to history. Three decades have passed since then. Three decades of aspirations and accomplishments, of uncertainties and achievements. And even if today we have enough reasons to be sad, if we are not rich and not as free as we would like, we still have enough reasons to be proud of our country and its people, of the progress made on the path of democratization and modernization.

All the best and most noble things that the citizens of the Republic of Moldova have done during the three decades of independence have been done under the mobilizing sign of the tricolor, of values and ideals inherited from their ancestors. Proof of this are more than 70 pieces presented at the exhibition "Promoters of National Identity and Values" organized by the National Museum of History of Moldova in cooperation with the public organization "Șezătoarea Basarabiei" ("Bessarabia Gatherings"). The exhibition brings together a series of photographs and ethnographic objects (traditional shirts, scarves, belts, and so on) from the collections of the National Museum of History of Moldova and photographs of traditional shirts for women, men and children, made by members of the "Șezătoarea Basarabiei" community, which brings together people of different professions - teachers, engineers, accountants, economists, doctors, journalists, artists, researchers - who are in love with the traditional Romanian costume, active promoters of national identity and values.

Folk costume is one of the defining elements of national culture, a landmark and an emblem of national identity. Regardless of whether they are presented in a classical style and preserved or taken up and reinterpreted, the symbols of folk clothes are always current.

The exhibition "Promoters of National Identity and Values" can be visited from 27 August to 30 September, in the upstairs hall of the NMHM (31 August 1989 street, nr. 121 A).