Abstract

The National Museum of History of Moldova has organized the temporary exhibition "The Great War. Photographic documents", which had been presented on the 1st floor hall between July 31, 2014 and September 22, 2014. The exhibition was part of the international commemoration of the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War. It brought together over a hundred exhibits, mostly photographs of the time, supplemented by documents, postcards, maps and newspapers discovered in the course of research of the museum collection of documents and photographs. The photographic images have captured ordinary soldiers and officers during wartime everyday life. The selection of original photos from the military albums, newspapers, maps and postcards represented war scenes, weapons and ammunition, soldiers' lives in their leisure hours, medical personnel on the battlefield and in the rear, and the horrors of military conflagration. A special compartment of the exhibition was dedicated to Bessarabia and Bessarabians in World War I, whose contribution to the events of the First World War was expressed in the socioeconomic and, more importantly, in the humanistic aspect. Among the participants of the war there were many future members of the Country's Council "Sfatul Ţării" and other famous personalities, but our exhibition also showed simple soldiers doing their duty. The research of documents and photographs from the museum collection has allowed us to identify a number of Bessarabian soldiers who participated in the terrible massacre.