#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

"Whisper of harmony..." 100 years since birth of the plastic artist Igor Vieru (1923-1988)

August 17 – September 26, 2023

December 23, 2023 marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of the renowned plastic artist Igor Vieru (1923-1988). On this occasion, within the framework of the National holidays of the Republic of Moldova: Independence Day and National "Our Language" Day, the National Museum of History of Moldova, in partnership with the Vieru family, organizes the exhibition with the title "Whisper of harmony..." 100 years of at the birth of the painter Igor Vieru (1923-2023).

The exhibition includes a series of paintings and book illustrations signed by Igor Vieru, as well as personal objects of the painter, kept in the heritage of the National History Museum of Moldova. Part of the artist's works of art were exhibited as part of Igor Vieru's largest personal exhibition, hosted by the Museum between May and September 1988, the opening of which he was not allowed to arrive alive, dying from life on May 24, 1988. But it was spent on the last particular road of that exhibition, surrounded by his creation, family, friends and Museum visitors. The personal objects from the exhibition are presented to the general public for the first time, with a series of photos provided for the exhibition by Igor Vieru's family.

The generic of the current exhibition was taken from the essay Thoughts on the threshold of the house, signed by Igor Vieru in 1981, where, among other things, the painter meditating on the contemporary trends of desecrating the harmony of colors, specific to the old barks, mentions that the whisper of their harmony has become a scream irritating, thus wanting to emphasize the importance and necessity of preserving our ancestral art unaltered.

In 2004, another exhibition dedicated to the great painter was set up at the National Museum of History of Moldova: "Igor Vieru - unknown", organized and financially supported by the artist's son - Roland Vieru, in which more than 800 pieces of painting and graphics, found in the family collection.
The exhibition is structured in two compartments: personal items and photographs, paintings and graphic drawings by the painter Igor Vieru.

In the first compartment are displayed the state and departmental decorations of the USSR and the Moldovan SSR, given to the painter in recognition of his merits and their certificates, photographs, in which scenes from the life and work of Igor Vieru are reproduced, several personal objects, such as the hat his straw saddle, the violin he played on, the painting suitcase, a palette of colors, a dish for washing brushes, a family rug, etc. A central place is occupied by Igor Vieru's easel, on which the painter's "Self-Portrait", created in 1968, is displayed.

In the second compartment, a series of works are on display, including oil paintings on cardboard such as "Childhood Memories" by Ion Creangă, the portrait of Ion Creangă, the bojdeuca of Ion Creangă from Iași, gouache illustrations on paper for the textbook "Abecedar" from 1968, on which he worked together with the poet Grigore Vieru; graphic designs for Mihai Eminescu's book "Călin", sets for the film "Bridges" by Vasile Pascaru from 1979, as well as illustrations for children's books "Guguță, capitan de corabie", "Mother-in-law with three daughters" by I. Creangă, from 1955, "The Story of Snowflakes" by Grigore Vieru, from 1956, etc.

The exhibition can be visited by the general public starting from August 17, 2023 and until September 26, 2023, in the upstairs hall of the National Museum of History of Moldova, 31 August 1989 street, 121A.