#Exhibit of the Month

The main parts of the camera include the body, bellows, lens, and viewfinder system. The body consists of two lacquered walnut wood frames, joined by a folding black textile bellows that allows the necessary extension for focusing. On the front panel is the Agfa anastigmat lens, mounted in a Compur-type shutter produced by F. Deckel in Munich. It features a foldable "brilliant" viewfinder for both portrait and landscape orientation. It uses glass photographic plates coated with a photographic emulsion, mounted in walnut wood holders, with a frame size of 9x12 cm.
The walnut wood model, considered the flagship "Agfa Isolar Luxus," was designed by the A.H. Rietzschel factory in Munich, acquired by AGFA in 1925, which continued producing this type of camera under its own name until the late 1920s.
The piece was restored by Mihail Culașco, Restoration Department of NMHM.
Brief History of the Camera
The history of the camera spans 200 years, evolving from the camera obscura to today's digital devices. Key milestones include: the first permanent photograph in 1826 by French physicist Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, using a wooden box and a plate coated with bitumen of Judea; the invention of the first photographic process - daguerreotype - in 1839 by Frenchman Louis Daguerre, marking the official birth of photography; the invention of calotype, based on the negative/positive principle, by British physicist and chemist Fox Talbot; the invention of wet collodion plates by Englishman Frederick Scott Archer and dry glass plates by Richard Leach Maddox and John Huds Bennet; the introduction of flexible roll film and the launch of the first Kodak camera by American inventor George Eastman; the release of the first 35 mm film camera by German company "Leica"; the launch of the first instant camera "Polaroid," invented by American Edwin Land. Finally, starting in 1975, this path led to the digital photography revolution. Each successive step made cameras smaller and faster, significantly improving image quality.
The first photographic studio in Chișinău was opened in 1854 by Eduard Glewski, and before World War I, there were already about 100 photography studios in Bessarabia.
The collection of the National Museum of History of Moldova includes over 30 cameras, made in Austria, Germany, France, USSR, Japan, and China, dating from the late 19th century to the 2000s. Among them are folding bellows cameras, BOX-type cameras, single-lens reflex (SLR) and twin-lens reflex (TLR) cameras, as well as digital (DSLR) cameras.

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Exhibitions

„Childhood in the Gulag”

The Museum of History and Ethnography of Telenești

31 May – 31 July, 2022

The Museum of Victims of Deportations and Political Repression of MNIM, in cooperation with the Embassy of the Republic of Lithuania, opened on 31 May 2022, the photo-documentary exhibition "Childhood in the Gulag" with the Round Table at the Museum of History and Ethnography in Telenești (Ciprian Porumbescu Street, no. 8, Telenești), with on-site and online participation.

The director of the Museum of History and Ethnography from Telenești, Elena Ilescu, addressed the visitors of the exhibition with a welcoming speech, referring to the importance of knowing the history and memory of the victims produced by the totalitarian-communist regime in the Moldavian SSR among children, especially in the context of today's international events. Dr. Ludmila Cojocaru, head of the Museum of Victims of Deportations and Political Repressions, a branch of the NMHM, presented to the audience the concept and main compartments of the exhibition, recounting from the history of scientific documentation on this photo-documentary exhibition and the novelty of the theme for the field of museography in the Republic of Moldova. The head of the Department of Contemporary History of the Institute of History, Dr. Virgiliu Bîrlădeanu, stressed the importance of the support from European partners in expanding the horizons of historical research in the Republic of Moldova. The schoolteachers and their students present at the opening appreciated the didactic and educational value of this event for the young generation of the Republic of Moldova. The deportees who attended the inauguration found their neighbors and relatives in the images on display.

The exhibition was accompanied by the round table with the participation of history teachers from Telenești district, students of the Alecu Russo State University Bălți and as well as representatives of museographic community from the Republic of Moldova. Of particular interest were subjects related to the circumstances of forced schooling and labor training of children from families of "enemies of the people". The researchers discussed the transgenerational impact of the trauma caused by the totalitarian-communist regime and the need to study it, and museographers reiterated the importance of joining efforts to preserve this historical heritage.

The exhibition brings together about 180 photo-documentary exhibits accompanied by memoirs and archival documents from the collections of the National Museum of History of Moldova, the Edineț Regional Museum, the Museum of the History and Ethnography of Soroca, the Archive of the ProMemoria Institute, archives of local communities of the Republic of Moldova, and, especially, from the family archives of victims of the totalitarian-communist regime in the Moldavian SSR.

The opening of the photo-documentary exhibition "Childhood in the Gulag" at the Museum of History and Ethnography in Telenesti is a tribute to the memory of children who went through the atrocities of the totalitarian communist regime in the USSR, as well as a commemoration of the recent victims among children in the context of the Russian Federation war on the territory of Ukraine.

The photo-documentary exhibition "Childhood in the Gulag" is open to the public from May 31 to June 30, 2022.

The photo-documentary exhibition „Childhood in the Gulag" is realized within the project „Strengthening the European culture of memory by disseminating historical knowledge and promoting democratic values: exchange and implementation of the best practices between Lithuania and the Republic of Moldova" (code VB52-1 ), with the support of The Development Cooperation and Democracy Promotion Program of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Lithuania.