#Exhibit of the Month

The Chișinău Diocesan Girls' School opened its doors on May 3, 1864, addressing a pressing need: in Bessarabia there were no institutions dedicated to the education of clergy's daughters. According to the 1864 circular, teaching was conducted in the Romanian language, a provision applied throughout the diocese. The school's first headmistress was noblewoman Anastasia Dmitrievna Rizo, invited by Archbishop Antonie.
The curriculum, approved by the Ministry of Public Education and the Chișinău Diocese, combined theoretical subjects with practical training. Students studied religion, reading and writing in Romanian, Slavonic, and Russian, arithmetic and mental calculation, world history and geography. The program was complemented by church singing and practical skills such as sewing, embroidery, knitting, as well as household management - baking bread and prosphora, preparing meals and preserves, caring for livestock, and cultivating gardens.
The vignette, created in 1911 at the photographic studio of Z. N. Sumovski in Chișinău, depicts 29 graduates and 13 teachers. At the center are portraits of Bishop Serafim (Ciciagov), headmistress N. R. Mihelson, teacher V. E. Bejerian, and priests F. Ghiliarov and P. Jurikas. A notable figure is Praskovia Vasilievna Cuciurenko, a calligraphy teacher for 37 years, who in 1911 became senior educator and assistant headmistress. For her dedication, she was awarded the gold medal "For Long Service."
By 1911, the school had 648 students across 17 classes. Its library contained 7,414 volumes, including 3,955 for students and 3,459 for teachers. Graduates, often becoming priests' wives or teachers in rural and urban schools, contributed to spreading faith and moral education, strengthening the cultural and spiritual role of the institution.
On the reverse of the vignette is a label reading: "Store and workshop for frames, paintings, mirrors, and window glass, A. D. Kon'gova, Chișinău, Gogol Street no. 37, next to the State Bank."
This unique vignette was donated at the end of 2025 to the National Museum of History of Moldova by the Dadiștian family from Drochia.

Virtual Tour

Exhibitions

“Reinhard Heydrich. The attempt. The death of Holocaust’s architect”

January 22 – February 4, 2024

Between January 22 and February 4, 2024, the National History Museum of Moldova hosts the exhibition “Reinhard Heydrich. The attempt. The death of Holocaust’s architect”.

On May 27, 1942, the Czech parachutists Jan Kubiš and Josef Gabčík assassinated SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich. They killed not only the hated oppressor of the Czech nation, but the man who was in charge of one of the most horrendous missions in the mankind history, the architect of the holocaust. This event, one of the most memorable in modern Czech history, also confirmed the approval which was given to both national and foreign representatives of the Zionist movement throughout inter-war Czechoslovakia.

Heydrich‘s assassinaton turned the wheel of the history marching on Prague Castle pavement. On October 29, 1941, Heydrich and Himmler were marching in front of an honorary SS unit and planning the "final solution of the Jewish question". The inauguration audience of the first Israeli ambassador, Ehud Avriel was carried out at the same place of the Prague Castle on July 28, 1948.

The exhibition has been prepared by the Military History Institute Prague together with Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic; the exhibit in the frames of the Holocaust Memorial Week 2024 is organized by the Jewish History Museum of Moldova and Embassy of the Czech Republic in Chișinău în partnership with National History Museum of Moldova, supported by the Ministry of Culture and și the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Intregration.

Exhibition graphic design: Petr Liška / ViaGaudium s.r.o.
Special thanks for providing materials and sources to: Czech National Archive, Central Military Archive and Czech National Museum Archive - Prague Castle Photographic Archives.