#Exhibit of the Month

One of the great technical achievements that revolutionized the idea of time and space, opening a new era in the history of communication, is telegraphy. It is based on the transmission of electrical signals through a cable over long distances, allowing people to communicate instantly. The telegraph spread very quickly and a network of wires stretched around the world.

In 1837, the American painter and physicist Samuel Morse invented the first electromagnetic device for telegraphy, patented in 1840. To send messages by wire, Morse developed in 1838 a simple code of dots and dashes, which represented the letters of the alphabet, known as "Morse code ".

Both Morse code and the telegraph machine were improved over time, with the telegraph becoming the most widespread system of communication and information transmission for more than a century, until the advent of the Internet. The telegraph system consisted of a series of stations repeaters along the transmission line route. Each station had an operator who received and transmitted messages by telegraph. The Morse machine transmitted about 25 words per minute, which were recorded in code on a paper tape. The operator in charge of transmitting the message would decode it and write it on paper using a special typewriter.

In Bessarabia, the telegraph entered in 1860: on April 8, the Bender telegraph station began its activity, and on April 24, the one in Chisinau, following the construction of the first Odesa-Chisinau-Leova telegraph line. Currently, telegraph services have been discontinued. The only ones who still use coded communication are radio amateurs.

The Morse telegraph machine shown comes from the Osinoostrovsky electrotechnical plant, Soviet Union, and dates back to 1934. The exhibit was restored by Mihail Culașco.

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Events Archive

Scientific Conference „BESSARABIAN SCHOOL”

February 14, 2013

On 14 February 2013 the National Museum of Archaeology and History of Moldova has organized the Scientific Conference "Bessarabian School". The event is part of a series of commemorative activities celebrating the 200^th anniversary of the opening of the Theological Seminary in Chisinau (31 January 1813), the first institution of theological studies in the area between the Prut and Dniester. The event has a much broader concept, involving the religious and secular education system in Bessarabia during Tsarist period in the whole. The conference aimed at updating the cultural program of the Bessarabian School expressed by Alexandru Hâjdău as the trustee of schools of the Hotin County in his famous speech "In memory of the old glory of Moldova" (on 25 July 1837), in which he more than anyone else was able to present a high conscious position of Bessarabian Romanians to learn from temporary owners of their land, not adopting their spirit, because temporary political boundaries during the tsarist period (1812-1918) could never become the spiritual barriers between Bessarabian Romanians and the rest Romanian world.

The event was conducted with the participation of historians, museum curators, teachers from the Academy of Orthodox Theology of Moldova. There were presented reports and communications on a wide range of issues related to the history of Bessarabian school in the 19^th century "under Russians": Foundation of the Chișinău Theological Seminary (Dr. Eugen Onicov); Periods of activity of the Theological Seminary, 1813-1913 (Dr. Veaceslav Ciorba); The Three Saints Theological Seminary (Victor Ceresău); Personalities who have worked in the Chișinău Theological Seminary (Onică Roman, Valentin Ceban, Tudor Gavriliță); Grigore Constantinescu, teacher of Romanian in the Chișinău Theological Seminary (Dr. Dinu Poștarencu), From the history of the library of Chișinău Theological Seminary (1813-1913) (Dr. Maria Danilov); Monastic education schools in Bessarabia of the late 19^th - early 20^th century (Dr. Silvia Scutaru); On the secular education in Bessarabia in the end of 1850s (Alexandru Argint); Education in Bessarabia between 1856 -1878 (Maria Tetiuhina); Development of the school system in the Bulgarian colony of Taraclia, the Akkerman County (1839-1918) (Ivan Duminică, The Saints Cyril and Methodius University of Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria), etc.

Participants in the Scientific Conference Bessarabian School (to the 200^th anniversary of the founding of the Chisinau Theological Seminary) were invited by Dr. Eugen Sava, General Director of NMAHM, to submit their reports for publication in the journal Tyragetia, vol. XXII, 2013.