#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

Events Archive

Actions devoted to the European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism

August 18, 2023

On August 18, 2023, in the context of the European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism, the photo-documentary exhibition „In the shackles of Siberia. Bessarabian children deported by the totalitarian-communist regime during the years 1940-1941, 1944-1953” of the Museum of Victims of Deportations and Political Repressions, NMHM.

With the signing, on August 23, 1939, of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact and the secret additional protocol on the division of Europe into spheres of influence between Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany, followed the outbreak of the Second World War, the destruction of sovereign states and the death of millions victims in extermination camps, the Gulag, deportations and illegal arrests.

The exhibition „In the shackles of Siberia. Bessarabian children deported by the totalitarian-communist regime during the years 1940-1941, 1944-1953” presents aspects of the lives of the most innocent victims of the Soviet Gulag – children and minors, descendants of the families of „enemies of the Soviet people”. The photo-documentary testimonies and documents brought to the attention of the visitors reproduce the emotional sensitivity, the experiences and the traumatic memories of a generation in relation to their own past from the Stalinist period.

The opening was inaugurated by the President of the Association of Former Deportees and Political Detainees from the Republic of Moldova, Mr. Alexandru Postică, who warmly welcomed the presence of the exhibition within the Association’s commemorative events. The head of the branch Museum of Victims of Deportations and Political Repressions, NMHM, Dr. Ludmila Cojocaru, referred to the need to strengthen efforts to disseminate historical knowledge with reference to the totalitarianisms of the 20^th century. Representatives of the generation whose childhood was spent in special settlements in Siberia and Kazakhstan shared their memories from the Gulag and drew attention to the importance of perpetuating this memory across generations as an act of justice for those wronged by all totalitarian regimes.

The event was organized by the Museum of Victims of Deportations and Political Repressions, NMHM and the Institute of History, MSU in partnership with the Association of Former Deportees and Political Detainees from Moldova and the Public Association Center of Excellence „Pro Memoria” Institute.

The exhibition can be visited at the headquarters of the Association of Former Deportees and Political Detainees from the Republic of Moldova (Str. Mihail Kogălniceanu 52/A) between August 18 and September 28, 2023.

Through these actions, the National History Museum of Moldova joins the international campaign carried out in Poland, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia and Ukraine initiated by the International Platform Common Remembrance.