#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.

Virtual Tour

Exhibitions

"The Famine of 1946-1947. History and Memory in Gagauzia"

The National Museum of History of Moldova

April 7-30, 2026

During the period April 7-30, 2026, the National Museum of History of Moldova hosts the photo-documentary exhibition "The Famine of 1946-1947. History and Memory in Gagauzia", dedicated to one of the most tragic pages in the history of the totalitarian-communist regime. The opening will take place on Tuesday, April 7, 2026, at 2:00 p.m., in the upstairs lobby of the National Museum of History of Moldova.

The exhibition reveals the premises, causes and dramatic consequences of the famine of 1946-1947 in the south of the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic, contributing to a better understanding of this scourge in Gagauz communities.

The famine of 1946-1947 in the Moldavian SSR was caused by natural and political factors. The severe drought of 1945-1946 compromised the harvests and drastically reduced grain production. However, the decisive role was played by the repressive economic policies of the Soviet state, which imposed mandatory deliveries of agricultural products to the state on peasant households. The consequences were dramatic: about 200,000 people lost their lives, representing about 10% of the population.

Starting with the autumn and winter of 1946, deaths due to dystrophy and physical exhaustion were recorded daily in rural and urban localities in the south of the Moldavian SSR. The situation in the region reached alarming proportions. For example, in just 15 days in December 1946, 70 people died in the Vulcănești district. In the Ceadâr-Lunga district, 15 deaths were recorded in the village of Tomai, 25 in Chiriet-Lunga, 13 in Beșghioz and 21 in Gaidai. In January 1947, the number of victims increased dramatically: 893 in Vulcănești, 825 in Congaz, 567 in Taraclia and 770 in Ceadâr-Lunga. On February 11, 1947, an official report on the situation in the Cahul region noted that, in the villages with Gagauz population, in January and February, up to 30% of the population had perished, and urgent measures were requested to prevent further loss of human life. The exhibition brings to the public attention the testimonies, photographs and documents, many of them presented for the first time, coming from the patrimony of the National Museum of History of Moldova, the Museum of History of the village of Avdarma and the funds of the National Archives Agency.

"The Famine of 1946-1947. History and Memory in Gagauzia" represents an attempt to recover collective memory and an act of symbolic justice dedicated to the victims of the Great Famine in the Moldavian SSR. Their memory is evoked in the localities of Gagauzia ATU starting with 2019, on October 19. Since 2022, the entire society of the Republic of Moldova marks this tragedy on the third Saturday of April.

The exhibition was elaborated within the project "The Famine of 1946-1947. History and Memory in Gagauzia", initiated by the History Museum of the village of Avdarma in collaboration with the National History Museum of Moldova, within the National Program "Access to Culture 2025" of the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Moldova.

The exhibition "The Famine of 1946-1947. History and Memory in Gagauzia" will be open to the public between April 7-30, 2026, in the upstairs hall of the National Museum of History of Moldova (Chisinau, 31 August 1989 Street, 121A).