#Exhibit of the Month

The work In Memoriam. In Memory of the Heroes Who Fell at the Nistru (1992) was developed within the Center for Culture and Military History and published under the auspices of the Government of the Republic of Moldova, the Bureau for Reintegration, and the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Moldova. Authors: Gheorghe Bălan, Vitalie Ciobanu, Gheorghe Cojocaru.

This work provides a retrospective of the events that led to the outbreak of the war on the Nistru, accompanied by photographs of the heroes who lost their lives in the battles to defend the independence and territorial integrity of the Republic of Moldova.

On March 2, 1992, the political conflict in the Nistru region escalated into a true fratricidal war. Under the fabricated pretext of "defending Russia's southern borders," political adventurers from the former Soviet metropolis encouraged Transnistrian separatism by arming secessionist paramilitary groups. At the same time, thousands of mercenary Cossacks and prisoners released early from jails, along with tanks and missiles, were sent against Independent Moldova, in a desperate attempt to revive the fallen empire.

Russia's undeclared war against the Republic of Moldova left behind hundreds of dead and wounded, shattered families, and villages in ruins. More than 50,000 peaceful residents from the conflict zone were forced to flee their homes, seeking refuge from the horrors of war.

For the sake of freedom and the future, Moldova's defenders faced death, enduring the hardships and humiliations of war.

During the Nistru war, 198 soldiers of the National Army and 89 personnel from the Ministry of Internal Affairs lost their lives, while 40 combatants went missing without a trace, and nearly 300 were left disabled.

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Publications

Library „Tyragetia"

Elena Ploșnița

Museographic Concepts of Historical Profile: Retrospect and Prospect

Series “Biblioteca “Tyragetia” XVII, Chisinau, 2008, 248 p. ISBN 978-9975-80-197-3.

The monograph “Museographic Concepts of Historical Profile: Retrospect and Prospect” is a work on an actual and unstudied subject, the synthesis study of museographic concepts on history which dominated in the history of Moldova from the 19th century to the present.

The structure of the work is determined by the specificity of the subject under research. It consists of Preface; arguments; three chapters (“Archaeology and History in Bessarabian Museographic Concepts”, “Creation and Development of Museography of Historical Profile in Moldavian SSR”, “Role of Cultural Policy and Civil Society in Adoption of New Museographic Concepts in Late 20th – Early 21st Centuries”), which are divided into 10 sections; Conclusion; Bibliography; Index of Museographic Concepts; Index of Museums; Index of Proper Names; abstracts in Romanian, English, and Russian; and List of Abbreviations.

The concepts under consideration were identified and systematized on the basis of materials found in the National Archives of the Republic of Moldova, the Archives of the Historical Monuments Department from Bucharest (Romania), the State Archives of the Russian Federation, in the collections and archives of the National Museum of Archaeology and History of Moldova, and the archives of the National Museum of Ethnography and Natural History (Chisinau). The materials, for the most part, have not previously been investigated.

The studies revealed that each historical period of development of the Moldavian society since the late 19th century gave rise to (and was marked by) certain museographic concepts and, at the same time, these concepts have been a reflection of social and intellectual concerns, the interest in history of the past, the attitude of a collective mentality, an of course, cultural policy in general and museum policy in particular, promoted by government bodies.