An itinerant exhibition that passed through a series of localities in Romania and the Republic of Moldova to show to the public the sufferings endured by the victims of the totalitarian regime on the left bank of the Prut during the Soviet period can be now seen in Chisinau. Photographs, works of art, audio testimonies that provide a detailed picture of the Stalinist deportations from Bessarabia were exhibited in the courtyard of the National Museum of History of Moldova, IPN reports.
Doctor of history Ludmila Cojocaru, an employee of the National Museum of History, said that the exhibition was first mounted in Bucharest, then in Focșani and Iași, after which it crossed the Prut and reached the localities covered by deportations. “And in this way, memories, recollections, testimonies are put together, a common memory is built - a European memory, uniting both banks of the Prut and making us find ourselves in the European community,” said the doctor of history.
Among the exhibits is a map of the localities from which Bessarabian families were deported. It is based on scientific data but has an artistic presentation so as to attract a wider audience. The exhibited photographs are copies of the photographs that have recently joined the patrimony of the National Museum of History of Moldova. They are presented to the general public in a very emotional manner, being framed inside jewelry boxes. “The message sent is that these memories and photographs become, perhaps, even more precious than the jewels that are a fortune for the patrimony of a family. We are talking about the memory of the nation, about the memory of each of us,” stated Ludmila Cojocaru.
The animation “The Nameless Cat”, created by Genady Popescu, is also part of the exhibition and treats the subject of deportations. Gennady Popescu said that the film is a segment that is related to the day before deportations, the night of deportations and what happened later with the house and the cat that is the main character. In the first part, the day of a family is shown. The second part shows the night of deportations, the part in which the intruders - three soldiers and a man with a red armband from the village - came. In the images, the house appears suspended above the ground, as if it was pulled out of its roots, suggesting that its inhabitants were “uprooted” from their home. In the third part, the changes that the house went through are shown. The author aimed to show the irreversibility of these moments.
According to the creator of the animation, memory is the main message. Memory is a fine tissue that needs to be worked with or it can become atrophied. Taking into account the fact that the victims of deportations are already at an advanced age and many of them are not alive, the subject of deportations must be raised as much as possible, the artist noted.
The manager of the “Caravan of Gulag Memories” project Victoria Nagy Vajda said that the project was initiated in 2022 after the outbreak of Russia’s war against Ukraine. “I looked at a number of materials, testimonies and made a selection from everything I read and documented. I wanted to create an itinerary of testimonies of different people from the moment of deportation, the trip by the train, the impressions they had, the situation in which they were in at that moment, the moment when they arrived, the work that family members were doing, especially their parents or brothers, older sisters, the relationships they had with the school and, in the end, we have a testimony about Stalin’s death and what this event meant for them,” the project manager said. The testimonies of the protagonists of the exhibition were also presented through audio recordings, read by actors from Bucharest.
The exhibition “Caravan of Gulag Memories” is a project carried out by the Arbor Association for Culture and Arts, in partnership with the National Museum of History of Moldova, the Embassy of the Republic of Moldova in Romania, the UNTEATRU theater company, the National Library of the Republic of Moldova and with the support of the exhibition hosts – mayor’s offices, district councils, museums and theaters of Romania and the Republic of Moldova. After Chisinau, the exhibition returns to Bucharest.
