#Exhibit of the Month

Manufactured in 1902 by AG vorm Siedel & Nauman in Dresden, Germany.

Dimensions: Length - 38 cm, Width - 35 cm, Height - 20 cm. Weight - 16 kg. It entered the museum collection in 1984, transferred from the National Museum of Ethnography and Natural History.

The typewriter features a standard carriage mounted on ball bearings and rollers, along with a keyboard equipped with 42 keys. These contain two complete sets of Latin and Cyrillic alphabets, punctuation marks, numbers, and mathematical symbols, enabling the typing of 126 characters. Beneath the metal casing, the type bars are arranged in a fan-like pattern, holding embossed characters and ink ribbon rollers. When the keys are pressed, the type bars strike the inked ribbon, imprinting characters onto the paper tensioned in the machine's roller system.

The side panels are elegantly decorated with refined cast-iron elements in the Art Nouveau style, displaying the brand name - "Ideal." The Polyglott model, featuring a bilingual keyboard patented in the United Kingdom by Max Klaczko from Riga, Latvia, was produced between 1902 and 1913, marking the first typewriter capable of writing in two languages. The "Ideal Polyglott" typewriter was actively sold in the Russian Empire and gained significant popularity in Poland, Bulgaria, and Serbia.
The typewriter - a mechanical device used for printing text directly onto paper - ranks among the most important inventions of the modern era, as it revolutionized communication. From the late 19th century to the early 21st century, it became an indispensable tool, widely used by writers, in offices, for business correspondence, and in private homes. The peak of typewriter sales occurred in the 1950s when the average annual sales in the United States reached 12 million units. In November 2012, the British Brother factory produced what it claimed to be the last typewriter, which was donated to the Science Museum in London.
The advent of computers, word processing software, printers, and the decreasing cost of these technologies led to the typewriter's disappearance from the mainstream market, turning it into a museum exhibit.
June 23 marks Typewriter Day, commemorating the date when American journalist and inventor Christopher Latham Sholes patented his typewriter. This day celebrates the simple yet revolutionary device that has become history, as well as the remarkable literary achievements it has enabled since 1868.

Virtual Tour

Exhibitions

"Borders"

Media exhibition by multimedia artist Valeria Barbas

April 26 – May 10, 2023

On April 26, at 15:00, in the premises of the National Museum of History of Moldova, will take place the opening of the mixed media exhibition "Frontiers" by the multimedia artist Dr. Valeria Barbas. The exhibition symbolically marks April 27 - Tricolor Day, and represents an unprecedented collaboration with the Museum and Archive of the Parliament of the Republic of Moldova.

Within the " Borders " exhibition, various artistic mediums are represented - 10 paintings from the series created by the artist Valeria Barbas over two decades (2003-2023) with reference to various socio-political events of reference, audio-video installations and for the first time are presented objects saved from the fire of April 7, 2009.

The "Borders" exhibition project reveals a retrospective of the crucial events that marked and shook the Republic of Moldova during the thirty years of independence, with April 7, 2009 as the axis of reference. The exhibition presents for the first time a collaboration between various media historical and contemporary art. This correspondence finds its expression in the concept of borders, viewed from various perspectives, whether geographical, historical, or of an internal nature, of mentality. The exhibition project includes 10 canvases-chronicles, the first being dated from 2003, audio-video installations with reference to the 30 years of independence, objects and documents saved from the fire of April 7, 2009.

During the events of April 7, 2009, a significant part of the collection of documents in the Parliament Archive was burned. Around 3000 files containing information from 1946-2009 were destroyed. These are transcripts of plenary sessions of the Parliament, collections of adopted acts, decisions of the Permanent Bureau, minutes of committee meetings, provisions of the Parliament's leadership, documents regarding the activity of parliamentary fractions, personal files of deputies and employees of the Parliament Secretariat.

Among the salvaged items is a flag. We remind you that for the first time the Tricolor Day was designated on April 27, 1990. Those who will cross the threshold at the National History Museum of Moldova will have the opportunity to see for the first time various objects and documents recovered from the building after the events of that time.

The exhibition "Borders" can be visited between April 26 and May 10, 2023, at the National Museum of History of Moldova, 31 August 1989 street, 121A.