Moldova is one of the main countries of the solidarity projects initiated by Poland. "Solidarity" is also a state of mind that continues to have an influence on today's events, the Polish Ambassador to Chișinău, Bartłomiej Zdaniuk, said on the final day of the exhibition "The 40th anniversary of the Solidarity Revolution".
The great social movement "Solidarity", led by Lech Wałęsa, helped people to organize and express their wishes. According to the ambassador, the exhibition tells of events that took place 41 years ago. "The high point may have been on August 31, 1980, when agreements were signed with the communist regime, which allowed the subsequent registration of the trade union, which existed for a year and a half. From then on a wave started that has never died down. Of course, since then there have been various changes in Poland and other Central and Eastern European countries. I am convinced that the independence of Moldova, which we are going to mark in a festive way in the coming days, is somehow linked to what happened in Poland", said the ambassador.
The exhibition is set up in Romanian by the Polish Institute in Bucharest. It tells the story of the founding of Solidarity and its influence on the fate of Central and Eastern Europe.
"The great popular movement of the Solidarity trade union was not a partisan movement. It was a resistance movement in the face of a dictatorship, which fought for human rights and for the preservation of the identity of the people. The Polish Institute in Bucharest has also collaborated on other cultural projects with Moldovan specialists in order to promote the freedom that we learnt from our own history", said Natalia Mosor, director of the Polish Institute in Bucharest.
The event was organized in partnership with the National Museum of History of Moldova, located in Chișinău. "Poland's history has been vulnerable over the course of the centuries. It is very important for the young generation, not only from Poland, but also from other countries, including Moldova, to know some dramatic moments from Polish history. Dramatic, but also very important, because when Poland organized its system, it basically changed the history of Europe", said historian Eugen Sava.
Thanks to the determination of thousands of people, in 1989 Poland became the first country of the so-called Eastern Bloc, where, following discussions at the "Round Table", an agreement was reached which, in June 1989, led to partially free parliamentary elections and the collapse of the communist system. Other countries followed Poland's lead.
The exhibition was on display on the perimeter fence of the National History Museum of Moldova, with today being the last day.
