Abstract

In the collections of NMHM there are a military award, which has a particular symbolic value in view of the centenary of the First World War, which was celebrated in 2014 the medal "For Works on Excellent Performance of General Mobilization in 1914".

The medal was established by the decree of 12 February 1915 and was awarded to persons who had participated actively in the work associated with drawing up plans for mobilization, recruitment in military service, the supply of troops in dressings, providing military vehicles, as well as the transport of troops and military cargo. In addition, it was awarded to persons directly involved in the execution of works during the mobilization of 1914. Later the provisions were completed, so that the medal could be awarded to persons responsible for pre-military training of young people. The main issue (50000 copies) was made at the Petrograd Mint, and 800 medals were sent to Bessarabia, according to the request of its governor M.E. Gilhen.

Regarding the piece that is kept at NMHM, we shall mention that it entered the museum's collections from the disbanded Museum of Military Glory. It was donated to this museum in 1977 by a resident of Chișinău Vladimir Șirevschi. The donation included, in addition to this, other four military medals of the time and a photo of their former owner Onufrie Filipovici Shirevsky, the donor's father, who fought on the battlefields of the First World War.

The close analysis of the medal suggests that it was not made at the Petrograd Mint; most likely it was minted in a private workshop, located either at Kerki, the town in Turkestan, where the regiment of O.F. Shirevsky was stationed at the beginning of the First World War, or in Tashkent, the administrative center of Turkestan Region. It is known that, due to the large number of requests and the exhaustion of the original stock, private workshops in some gubernias, with the permission of the authorities, produced replicas of this medal. These replicas were awarded to those who, in local authorities' opinion, was worthy of this medal. In the archive file on awarding the medal "For Works on Excellent Performance of General Mobilization in 1914" in Bessarabia there is no mention of such initiatives of the local governor. This fact strengthens our assumptions, although in the questionnaire of O.F. Shirevsky, filled on March 18, 1916, there is no mention about the awarding this medal.