#Exhibit of the Month

The Chișinău Diocesan Girls' School opened its doors on May 3, 1864, addressing a pressing need: in Bessarabia there were no institutions dedicated to the education of clergy's daughters. According to the 1864 circular, teaching was conducted in the Romanian language, a provision applied throughout the diocese. The school's first headmistress was Anastasia Rizo, of noble origin, invited by Archbishop Antonie.

The curriculum, approved by the Ministry of Public Education and the Chișinău Diocese, combined theoretical subjects with practical training. Students studied religion, reading and writing in Romanian, Slavonic, and Russian, arithmetic and exercises in calculation, world history and geography. The program was complemented by church singing and practical skills such as sewing, embroidery, knitting, as well as household management - baking bread and prosphora, preparing meals and preserves, caring for livestock, and cultivating gardens.

The composite, taken in 1911 at the studio of Z. N. Sumovski in Chișinău, depicts 29 graduates and 13 teachers. At the center are portraits of Bishop Serafim (Ciciagov), headmistress N. R. Mihelson, teacher V. E. Bejerian, and priests F. Ghiliarov and P. Jurikas. Among the teaching staff was Paraskovia Vasilievna Cuciurenko, a calligraphy teacher for 37 years, who in 1911 became senior educator and assistant headmistress. For her dedication, she was awarded the gold medal "For Long Service."

On the reverse of the vignette is a label from the store and workshop of frames, paintings, mirrors, and window glass owned by A. D. Kon'gova, Chișinău, Gogol Street no. 37, near the State Bank.

This graduation composite was donated at the end of 2025 to the National Museum of History of Moldova by the Dadiștian family from Drochia.

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Exhibitions

“Goddesses and Warriors: 100 Years to Marija Gimbutas”

Lietuvos nacionalinis muziejus

23.09.2021–13.03.2022

The exhibition Goddesses and Warriors opened in the House of Histories presents Marija Gimbutas (1921-1994), the most famous Lithuanian archaeologist in the world, as well as her scientific insights.

Exhibition visitors learn about the two fundamental scholar's hypotheses on the development and identity of European culture, which earned her global recognition and gave rise to new academic as well as social movements.
8,000 years ago, the first farmers started spreading in the south-eastern part of Europe having brought their knowledge, customs, co-existence principles, and domestic animals from the Middle East. After they had got adapted to natural conditions, established relations with communities of hunters-fishers, a unique culture - referred to as Old Europe by Marija Gimbutas - started developing in the area ranging from Greece to the Carpathian region. Even though a great diversity of arts and technologies flourished there, certain common features were also evident: large settlements that existed for centuries; specialization in ceramics, metallurgy and various other crafts; trade and even rudiments of writing. Nevertheless, the most important point was that the life of this society was based on the cult of goddesses, the religion of the Goddess was dominant.

This civilisation ended when people of Kurgan culture started coming from the steppes 6,000 years ago. Those were pastoral nomads armed with daggers, axes and bows, identifiable from their specific burial customs, i.e. burying their relatives in barrows - kurgans. The Indo-European language, patriarchal traditions and tripartite perception of the world that they spread now form an integral part of the foundation of modern European culture.

In the exhibition, Marija Gimbutas's hypotheses defining European cultural transformation are illustrated with those archaeological finds that the scholar relied on by placing the greatest emphasis on them. Those unique exhibits arrived in Lithuania - to the House of Histories - from eighteen different European museums and institutions, including 56 pieces from the archaeological heritage of the National Museum of History of Moldova.

The third part of the exhibition is equally important. It focuses on Marija Gimbutas's personality and her life; on the woman who retreated from Lithuania to escape the Soviet occupation, who endured the hardships of migration yet never neglected her dreams and became a world-famous scholar. Her life constitutes an absolutely extraordinary story.

In the picture: Anthropomorphic figurine, Hamangia culture, 5000-4600 BC, Baia, Tulcea County, collection of the National History Museum of Romania, inv. no. 11662, © MNIR 2021, photo: Marius Amarie

Source: https://lnm.lt/en/events/international-exhibition-goddesses-and-warriors-100-years-to-marija-gimbutas/