Swiss archivists and historians visiting the National Agency of Archives in Chişinău, interested in Moldovan history, memory and archives, October 6. Thanks for the visit and waiting for Swiss historians to conduct research in our depositories! arhiva.gov.md

He brought to life Sundance, Jeremiah, Woodward, Brubaker, Gatsby, and so many more. Rest in Peace, Robert Redford.

16.09.1924: SOVIET HYBRID WAR AGAINST INTERWAR ROMANIA. My account on what happened in "Exporting Soviet Revolution: Tatarbunar Rebellion in Romanian Bessarabia (1924) // The International Journal of Intelligence, Security, and Public Affairs Vol. 22, 2020.

101 years today since the Tatarbunar rebellion in south Bessarabia, a Soviet inspired and led uprising against Romania, a hybrid war avant la lettre. Source: arhiva.gov.md

1989, 29-31 Aug: supporters of national movement beaten by Soviet militia in downtown Chişinău for endorsing Romanian language as state one. Parliament voted for that, that is why Moldova celebrates each year on Aug. 31 - and since 2011 Romania as well- day of Romanian language.

1991, August 27: Moldova declares its independence from the Soviet Union.

1989: condemning the Nazi-Soviet Pact of August 23, 1939 and its consequences for Bessarabia during the mass protests in downtown Chişinău. This issue was one of the main to delegitimise the Soviet regime.

Exhibition on “State Terror in Soviet Moldavia. Victims, Perpetrators, and Scale” in downtown Chişinău until July 27. Organised by National Agency of Archives, and Government of Moldova.

The interactive map of Soviet mass deportation from the Moldavian SSR in early July 1949, Operation SOUTH. The total of 35 792 persons were embarked at the nearby 26 railway stations. Click on the station and you will get the full list of those embarked from the nearest localities, per carriage.

REMEMBERING 1st MASS DEPORTATION IN MOLDAVIA: I. Cașu, Mass Deportation from Bessarabia/Moldavian SSR in mid-June 1941. Enhancing Security, a Social Engineering Operation, or something else? Securitas Imperii, 37, 2/2020, Available online for free at: securitas-imperii-journal.com/author/casu/

VIDEO 1986: satul Gura Galbenei, raionul Cimișlia. Părinți rămași la bătrânețe fără nici un sprijin, copiii fiind plecați departe în lume. Secvență din filmul "Cu durere și speranță", Moldova-film, regie Boris Vieru, scenariu - Dumitru Olărescu. Sursa: arhiva.gov.md

NEW BOOK on European famines, including on the Soviet postwar famine of 1946-7 which was most devastating proportionally in historical Bessarabia/Moldavian SSR. OPEN ACCESS.

Today’s visit to the Agenția Națională a Arhivelor of our American guests, Laura Engelstein, Professor Emerita, Yale & Princeton, and Michael Geyer, Professor Emeritus, University of Chicago. We have found some documents pertaining to Laura’s roots in Bessarabia.

Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe based on KGB docs - in a volume of 1200 pages published by Ukrainian historians back in 2019. Full access: cdvr.org.ua/wp-content/u...

Next Wednesday, 30.04.2025, Michael Geyer, Professor Emeritus, University of Chicago, will give a talk in Chișinău about Europe and Near East as Shatter-Zones of Empire in the 20th and 21st Centuries.

Next Tuesday, 29.04.2025, Laura Engelstein, Professor Emerita, Yale & Princeton, will give a talk in Chișinău about her ancestors born in Copanca, Moldova, on the Dniester river, and how they survived Russian revolution and civil war.

Online exhibition on postwar famine in Soviet Moldavia, 1946-7: lnkd.in/dvVqRA4j organised by government of Moldova and National Agency of Archives.

Crude Death Rate (CDR) per 1000 in Soviet Moldavia during the postwar famine of 1946-1947 (only 1947 here) which was the most devastating proportionally in the MSSR with 123,000 deaths, i.e. 4.5 % (Ellman, 2000). Map © Stephen Wheatcroft, Filip Slaveski, Igor Cașu, Ian D. Bishop.

Cannibalism during the postwar famine in Soviet Moldavia, 1946-1947. 153 cases documented so far based on archival sources. Includes both hommicidal cannibalism and necro-cannibalism.

U.S. HISTORIAN GLENN TORREY: On March 27, 1918, Sfatul Țării voted for Union of Bessarabia with Romania. Germany, France, and Great Britain approved it, for various reasons, "confirming the principle of nationality and self-determination". Romania and WWI, 1999, pp. 124-127.

Agenția Națională a Arhivelor is glad to host this week Katerina Lykoudi, Research Fellow at the Leibniz-Centrum Moderner Orient (ZMO), Berlin, who is working on a research topic "Russian-Ottoman relations and the Karaites Question" (Turkic-speaking Judaic ethnoreligious group).

30 years ago today - the biggest 3-month long student protests began in Moldova against an attempt by ruling PDAM government to reinstall the Soviet identity politics by forbidding the national history paradigm as part of history of Romanians instated in 1990.

The Voice of America helped a lot of Moldovans to avoid the Soviet mass deportations of early July 1949. Source: Agenția Națională a Arhivelor (ANA), Chișinău, Moldova, file on operation IUG, 1949, a former MGB/KGB file.

FOREIGN GUESTS AT MOLDOVA's ARCHIVES: this week we hosted Simon Miles, Duke University, author of "Engaging the Evil Empire: Washington, Moscow and the Beginning of the End of the Cold War", 2020, working now on "On Guard for Peace and Socialism: The Warsaw Pact, 1955–1991".

Moldova was the 1st country in the world - it is true not yet fully independent itself at that time - to recognize Lithuania’s independence from the USSR declared on March 11, 1990.

Visual Capitalist, 2025. Via Ion Efros.

Finland’s President Alexander Stubb to CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, 03.03.25: We should give Ukraine a de facto NATO membership, that means if Russia ever breaks that settlement or breaks the ceasefire and attacks Ukraine again, Ukraine becomes automatically a member of NATO.

Five myths, i.e. fake-news about the Russian-Moldovan war of 1992 that started today 33 years ago over Transnistria. In Russian, with Romanian subtitles, a rare opportunity to listen to voices on both sides of Dniester River. Source: Zona de Securitate.

Online exhibition on refugees issue during the Russian-Moldovan war of 1992 over Transnistria. You are most welcome to come to National Agency of Archives in Chișinău to do research on that. See online fond 2848, inventory no. 11 for more details.

Today Moldova commemorates the war of Transnistria that began 33 years ago, on March 2, 1992, the day when the country was accepted as UN member. Russia was the aggressor. As a result, Moldova has a frozen conflict that is a threat to regional and continental security.

On the eve of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, please join us next Thursday in London at ICR headquarters. A discussion on Holocaust in Transnistria moderated by Dan Stone (University of London).

VISITING SCHOLARS: Horațiu Simion, master student at Sorbonne, visited Agenția Națională a Arhivelor this week identifying valuable info on state’s policy toward religious minorities in interwar Romania.

December 23, 1989: Meeting in downtown Chișinău in support of Romanian Revolution. Source: National Agency of Archives, Chișinău, Moldova.

Orwell’s “Animal Farm,” a short, succinct burst of brilliance that you can finish in a day, should be required reading at all age levels at this stage.

My latest piece, and the first one on a French author, Jean Bodin, is out. It holds a special place in my heart. My beloved father, Borys Kewes, wanted to teach me French, but I was too silly, and anyway was already studying English & Russian. He died when I was 16, and I took up French forthwith.

With everything that's happening around the world, few outside Poland will remember that on 13 December 1981 the communism regime imposed martial law. Many were imprisoned & persecuted. But in 1989 Poland broke free from the Russian stranglehold. So will others!

Agenția Națională a Arhivelor is glad hosting this week two international scholars: Tomas Sniegon, Lund University, and Akitsu Mayuzumi, Tokyo University. Tomas is researching Soviet view on the Cold War, while Akitsu on the history of Black Sea region in 18th and 19th centuries.

The Ukrainian sky looks lovely with F-16s in it. According to President Zelenskyy, Denmark has sent the second shipment of F-16 planes to Ukraine. Thank you, Denmark! Thanks to the support of partners like you, our skies will be safer.

Finding aids online: fond 691, Siguranța, Romanian political and secret police, docs 1898-1942 on Russian/Soviets spies in Romania; Iron Guard; Soviet diplomats in Bucharest phone talks with Moscow, 1939-41; trophy fond seized by Soviets in 1946 to Chișinău.

INVENTARE ANA ONLINE - SIGURANȚA STATULUI: fond 691, al SIGURANȚEI, poliția politică a României precomuniste. Teme: spionajul Rusiei țariste și al URSS în România; spioni germani, austro-ungari, bulgari; colaborare Siguranță și Ohranka țaristă în anii 1916-1917; legionari, spioni sovietici 1939-41.

Andrei Sorescu, PEDDLERS, PEASANTS, ICONS, ENGRAVINGS. THE PORTRAIT OF THE TSAR AND ROMANIAN NATION‑BUILDING, 1888‑1916, in New Europe College Ştefan Odobleja Program Yearbook 2019-2020, Bucharest, 2020, pp. 209-241: nec.ro/wp-content/u...

National Agency of Archives is the first institution in Moldova to offer free access to newspapers’ database ARCANUM holding 80 million pages in high quality out of them 20 million in Romanian, including on interwar Bessarabia.

ARTICLE ON THE SOVIET POSTWAR FAMINE based on party, MVD, and KGB archives: "Do Starving People Rebel? Hunger Riots as Bab'y Bunty in Spring 1946 Soviet Moldavia and the Resistance Debate", in New Europe College Yearbook, 2019-2020: www.researchgate.net/publication/...

Zuckerberg owns Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and WhatsApp. Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post. Elon Musk owns Twitter/X. When multi-billionaires take control of our most vital platforms for communication, it’s not a win for free speech. It’s a win for oligarchy

Information appeared that President Biden has authorized the first use of U.S.-supplied long-range missiles by Ukraine for strikes inside Russia - New York Times, quoting U.S. officials.

'Towards a History of Parliamentary Culture in the Early Modern World: Concept, Geopolitical Scope, and Method' by Paulina Kewes, Jim van der Meulen, Steven J. Gunn, Dorota Pietrzyk-Reeves, Paul Seaward (@pseaward.bsky.social) & Tracey A. Sowerby (open access). www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

"The French and British had allowed Ukraine to strike Russian territory in depth with their SCALP/Storm Shadow missiles." - Le Figaro

UAF reports Russia attacked Ukraine with 210 weapons on Nov. 17 - 120 missiles and 90 drones. 102 missiles and 42 drones shot down, and locations another 41 drones "lost" in around the country. 25 missiles and drones unaccounted for; reports of hits on energy infrastructure.

Unbelievable…i just want to cry…