#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.

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Events Archive

Commemoration of the victims of political repressions of the communist totalitarian regime

8 August 2017

On August 8, at the National Museum of History of Moldova was held an event for the commemoration of the victims who had suffered the plight of political repressions of the communist totalitarian regime. The event was attended by: Ion Coropceanu, Senior State Councilor of the Prime Minister of the Republic of Moldova; Oleg Babin, Deputy Minister of Home Affairs; Gheorghe Postică, Deputy Minister of Culture; Eugen Sava, General Director of the National Museum of History of Moldova; Ion Varta, General Director of the State Archives Service of the Republic of Moldova; Simion Carp, Rector of the Academy „Ştefan cel Mare" of the MIA; Ghenadie Cosovan, President of NGO „Credință Patriei"; Anatol Caraman, President of the Association of Veterans of the 1992 War „Tiras-Tighina"; representatives of the academia, employees of the National Museum of History of Moldova and the Academy „Ştefan cel Mare".

The action was organized following a discovery made at the end of 2014 during the renovation of the MIA headquarters. A parquet board was found when removing the floor, on the back side of which was written the following message: "1949, July 28. I, Popa Nichifor, have been sentenced to 10 years for political reasons and I laid the parquet here".

The discovered parquet board was sent for additional study to the Academy "Ştefan cel Mare". This triggered a series of research activities within the archives of the Ministry of Interior, the State Archives Service and the Intelligence and Security Service of the Republic of Moldova. Thus, the identity of the messenger was established in the ISS archive: Popa Nichifor Ştefan, born in 1907, in the village Sireți, Strășeni District, sentenced to 10 years of deprivation of liberty for actions against the Soviet regime. From his file, it was also learned that along with Popa Nichifor Ştefan, four other persons from his village were imprisoned - Buzu Ştefan Gheorghe, born in 1880; Jaloba Foma Petru, born in 1902; Muru Mitrofan Zahar, born in 1905, and Ionița Terentie Alexandru, born in 1920. Some of the convicts, including Popa Nichifor, executed their sentence in the country, along with prisoners of war, others being exiled to Siberia, with the ban to return home for another 5 years after the punishment was over.

The parquet board with the message of the political prisoner Popa Nichifor was given in custody to the National Museum of History of Moldova by the Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs, Oleg Babin. This cultural asset with great historical value will be presented to the general public within the thematic exhibition dedicated to the totalitarian communist past, "Soviet Moldova - between myths and Gulag".

At the event was presented the documentary film "Testimonies of Victims of Political Repression", produced by the Academy "Stefan cel Mare" of the MIA.