The National Museum of History of Moldova organizes on Tuesday, June 24, 2025, the opening of the exhibition "Realms of Memory in the Post-Totalitarian Society", dedicated to the 85th anniversary of the annexation of Bessarabia, Northern Bukovina and the Herța Land by the USSR (June 28, 1940) as a result of the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, and is a homage to all the victims of the totalitarian-communist regime in Central and Eastern Europe during the years 1918-1989.
The exhibition reveals aspects of the commemorative culture in the post-totalitarian society in the former socialist camp (Poland, Romania) and the ex-Soviet space (Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Ukraine, Moldova, Kazakhstan, Russia), with the aim of contributing to the building of a European culture of memory and to consolidate the sense of European belonging in the Republic of Moldova. The images presented in the exhibition reflect realms of memory (lieux de mémoire, Pierre Nora) that today constitute the European memorial heritage - monuments erected in train stations from where persons were forcibly taken to prisons and special settlements in the USSR, commemorative steles on the buildings of communist prisons, crosses raised near the places of mass executions, memorials in memory of anti-communist resistance fighters, mass graves of famine victims.
The exhibition offers the opportunity to learn about history and memory, the circumstances surrounding the creation of commemorative signs, but also their evolution in the culture of memory in post-totalitarian society. However, monuments, as well as other forms of commemoration of the past (street names, anniversary dates, commemorative days, minute of silence etc.) are part of our common European heritage. At the same time, the topography of memory articulated through these testimonies of remembrance of the past helps us understand the extent of the totalitarian phenomenon and the atrocities committed by the communist regime in Central and Eastern Europe.
Most of the pieces presented in the exhibition come from the digital collection created within the Museum of Victims of Deportations and Political Repressions of the NMHM, as result of research within the State Program "Recovery and Historical Valorization of the Memory of the Victims of the Totalitarian-Communist Regime in the Moldavian SSR during the Years 1940-1941, 1944-1953". Some of the images exhibited are the result of cooperation with colleagues from the Resistance Memorial in Sighet (Romania), the Sybir Memorial Museum in Bialystok (Poland), the Museum of Occupations and Freedom Fights in Vilnius (Lithuania), but also of partnerships developed with institutions, specialists and memory communities in the Republic of Moldova.
The exhibition "Realms of Memory in the Post-Totalitarian Society" will be open to the public from June 24 to August 24, 2025, in the upstairs lobby of the National Museum of History of Moldova (Chisinau, 31 August 1989 Street, 121A).
31 August 1989 St., 121 A, MD 2012, Chisinau, Republic of Moldova
