#Exhibit of the Month

Manufactured in 1902 by AG vorm Siedel & Nauman in Dresden, Germany.

Dimensions: Length - 38 cm, Width - 35 cm, Height - 20 cm. Weight - 16 kg. It entered the museum collection in 1984, transferred from the National Museum of Ethnography and Natural History.

The typewriter features a standard carriage mounted on ball bearings and rollers, along with a keyboard equipped with 42 keys. These contain two complete sets of Latin and Cyrillic alphabets, punctuation marks, numbers, and mathematical symbols, enabling the typing of 126 characters. Beneath the metal casing, the type bars are arranged in a fan-like pattern, holding embossed characters and ink ribbon rollers. When the keys are pressed, the type bars strike the inked ribbon, imprinting characters onto the paper tensioned in the machine's roller system.

The side panels are elegantly decorated with refined cast-iron elements in the Art Nouveau style, displaying the brand name - "Ideal." The Polyglott model, featuring a bilingual keyboard patented in the United Kingdom by Max Klaczko from Riga, Latvia, was produced between 1902 and 1913, marking the first typewriter capable of writing in two languages. The "Ideal Polyglott" typewriter was actively sold in the Russian Empire and gained significant popularity in Poland, Bulgaria, and Serbia.
The typewriter - a mechanical device used for printing text directly onto paper - ranks among the most important inventions of the modern era, as it revolutionized communication. From the late 19th century to the early 21st century, it became an indispensable tool, widely used by writers, in offices, for business correspondence, and in private homes. The peak of typewriter sales occurred in the 1950s when the average annual sales in the United States reached 12 million units. In November 2012, the British Brother factory produced what it claimed to be the last typewriter, which was donated to the Science Museum in London.
The advent of computers, word processing software, printers, and the decreasing cost of these technologies led to the typewriter's disappearance from the mainstream market, turning it into a museum exhibit.
June 23 marks Typewriter Day, commemorating the date when American journalist and inventor Christopher Latham Sholes patented his typewriter. This day celebrates the simple yet revolutionary device that has become history, as well as the remarkable literary achievements it has enabled since 1868.

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Events Archive

World Refugee Day marked with music and art exhibition in Chisinau

21 iunie 2022

World Refugee Day was marked in Chisinau with an art exhibition and a concert given by several artists from Moldova and Ukraine. Among the performers were Pasha Parfeni and Adrian Ursu from Moldova and saxophonist Igor Znatokov and singer Olga Gornyh from Ukraine. Olesya Shevchenko, the wife of His Excellency the Ambassador of Ukraine to Moldova, gave an enthralling performance in Romanian, sending a message of gratitude to the Moldovans for hosting Ukrainians in their time of need.

The event was organised by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) at the National Museum of History and brought together Ministers, Ambassadors, heads of UN and international agencies as well as Ukrainians fleeing the war who have found safety in Moldova. Among them was Anastasia Ciorninkaia, who spoke about the suffering her compatriots have gone through and thanked Moldovans for their hospitality: "Thousands of us left our homes and crossed the border into Moldova. You met us at border, fed us, sheltered us. I promise from this stage that I will pass on to the next generations how you helped us!".

Francesca Bonelli, UNHCR representative in Moldova, also expressed her gratitude to the people and government of the Republic of Moldova, donors, humanitarian partners and all others who helped respond to the refugee crisis. "In my few months in the Republic of Moldova, I have witnessed the great hospitality Moldovans have accorded to refugees. And I discovered that this is rooted in the CASA MARE tradition which reserves the best room in the house for guests," Ms. Bonelli appealed for increased international support for refugees and the local population.

The event was also attended by Marcel Spatari Minister of Labour and Social Protection and Jana Costachi, State Secretary of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The two senior officials commended the efforts of all those involved in responding to the refugee crisis. "The greatest credit goes not to the Ministry, not to the Government, but to the community and volunteers. We can have the best ministers, the best development partners, the best action plans, but we won't achieve anything if we don't have the most important thing of all - Peace!" Mr. Spatari said.

The head of the Joint Refugee Crisis Management Cell, Colonel Adrian Efros, said that since February more than half a million Ukrainian refugees have transited through Moldova and more than 80 thousand were still in the country, half of them children. According to Colonel Efros, more than 100 Ukrainian babies were born in the Republic of Moldova since February and more than 6,000 children have been enrolled in schools.

World Refugee Day was first celebrated on 20 June 2001 and was created by the United Nations to honour refugees around the world. Each year, the event celebrates the strength and courage of people who have been forced to leave their homeland to stay alive because of conflicts or persecution. Currently, more than 85 thousand refugees are in the Republic of Moldova, including more than 80,000 Ukrainians and more than 3,700 people from other nationalities.

#Exhibit of the Month

"Ideal" Mechanical Typewriter, Model A Polyglott

World Refugee Day marked with music and art exhibition in Chisinau

21 iunie 2022

#Exhibit of the Month