#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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Book issue „Dreptul la proprietate și la moștenire al femeilor din Moldova și țările vecine (secolele XIV-XVII). Studii și documente” by Lilia Zabolotnaia

February 23rd, 2016

Tuesday, February 23rd, 2016, 15.00 hours, at the National Museum of History of Moldova (Blue Hall) was issued the volume: Lilia Zabolotnaia „Dreptul la proprietate și la moștenire al femeilor din Moldova și țările vecine (secolele XIV-XVII). Studii și documente". (Property and inheritance rights of women in Moldovan and neighboring countries (fourteenth to seventeenth centuries). Studies and documents). Seria Istoria la feminin, Editura: Lexon-Prim, Chișinău, 2015, -351 p.

The publication provides new insights and valuable research suggestions for women history - a new discipline of historical anthropology, distant from political and economic areas. This field was for a long time absent from the focus of fundamental academic research. The study is an analysis of the social and legal status of women in medieval society in Moldova compared with that of Walachia and Transylvania, also with that of Poland, Lithuania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Serbia and Russia.

For the first time were approached, using the comparative method, the following issues: legal status, social and economic impact of women in the family and society: equal rights with men to property and inheritance of property (movable and immovable), right of women to divorce, the right and hereditary succession of illegitimate children (to power and property) etc.

The originality of the work lies in defining a new definition of social and legal status of women in Moldova, achieved through methodical comparison of the characteristics unique to Moldova with those in other countries. This study of status highlighted the particularity of Moldova in the research field, revealing unknown features. One important conclusion of the study is the unique legal situation of women in medieval Moldova in European wider context - Moldovan women had many legal freedoms and privileges guaranteed by law and customary land.

The monograph is important under a practical aspect by highlighting certain interdisciplinary areas little known and researched: family history, privacy, spiritual and moral development of society, everyday mentality, history of personalities, women's history, political, social and economical history seen through human and demographic factors, sociology and history of law etc.

The volume represents a new vision of women history and serves as a source of research for professionals interested in the field and reading enthusiasts that will be captivated by new pages of a different history.

The launch event was attended by researchers, museographers, university professors, representatives of the accredited diplomatic corpse in Chisinau. Speakers: dr. hab., prof. Eugen SAVA, general director of the National Museum of History of Moldova; dr. hab., prof. Victor ŢVIRCUN, coordinating academician of Humanities and Art Section of ASM; dr. hab. Mariana ȘLAPAC, corresponding member of ASM; dr. Tamara NESTEROV, coordinating researcher at the Institute of Cultural Heritage of ASM; dr. Ana BOLDUREANU, head of Medieval History and Numismatics Section of the National Museum of History of Moldova; dr. Alina Felea, senior researcher at the Institute of History of ASM; journalist Boris MARIAN.

Book issue „Dreptul la proprietate și la moștenire al femeilor din Moldova și țările vecine (secolele XIV-XVII). Studii și documente” by Lilia Zabolotnaia

Connected with the book issue is the exhibition "Women History in Images" organized on the upper lobby of the museum. The exhibition offers the public an opportunity to see old women images preserved on wall pictures (frescoes) and portraits owned by museums abroad or kept in private collections, images that present in a kaleidoscopic way the historical past, capturing everyday life, spirituality and morality of each period.