Monografia (document PDF) - Asociatia Tinerilor Istorici din Moldova

Maria Danilov
1890). A reference work dedicated to inter-bellum history of bessarabian press appeared at the
end of 2006: a global research about magazine Arhivele Basarabiei (1929-1938).
The problem of Romanian press in heritage collections of Republic of Moldova. There were few
Romanian periodicals in bessarabian area, and the storage of these was done accidentally, collections
being fragmented and dispersed. There are documents confirming that during XIXth century
in the Public Library of Chisinau (founded in 1832) was a special collection – prohibited for public
use – containing collections of Romanian newspapers published in Romanian Principates that
were sent to Bessarabian Gubernator through diplomatic service of Russian consulate. Nowadays,
there are no signs of these collections: part of them was sent to Moscow and Sankt Petersburg
libraries, soviet agents burned others in ’60s.
We have to notice that few collections of Romanian language bessarabian press published
until 1918 have been preserved and are available today, both in heritage collections of Republic
of Moldova and Romania (although we know certainly that bessarabian press crossed Prut river
at the time it was published). One of the main causes of this situation is the reduced edition of
Romanian newspapers in Bessarabia that hardly reached the number of 700-800 exemplars. As
we lack a general catalogue of heritage Romanian press (in the Republic of Moldova), it is difficult
to precisely determine their location now. To cover the enormous lacunas of documentary
information about heritage Romanian press we have to elaborate an up-to-date Bibliographical
catalog of Romanian periodicals of Republic of Moldova in order to drag from anonymity of huge
archives of Russian press, the genuine values of national culture of this space.
Although the “Catalog of Bessarabian press”, published at the end of 2002, added valuable
contribution to the history of Bessarabian press, the problem of sources identification remains
one of a high priority. The Catalog was created – as the Message to the reader states – “to present
the periodical publications appeared in this territory from the 1812 (when first bulletin, considered
as a periodical by authors, appears) until the 1957 “(when National Chamber of Book appeared,
s.n. – M.D.). Since we do not have a repertory of national press, such a voluminous work required
a huge volume of work. The bibliography of this Catalog is over-complicated, including magazines,
newspapers, annual notices (!), address books (!), bulletins, almanacs, calendars, dactylographic
and hand written papers (!)
We do not know the criterion of selection for bibliographical descriptions included in catalog,
but the order of these in the internal structure of catalog makes it difficult for use. The paper is
also complicated because many of descriptions included in catalog were studied using pure bibliographical
sources (not attested de visu in heritage collections) that often have much inexact. Thus,
the investigation of sources in the collections of some specific institutions that have patrimony
is necessary, in the future. We do not have to insist that such publications – heritage catalogs –
are complex and pretentious works, both thematically and chronological, that sometimes impose
arbitrary order, consensually accepted. We consider that explanations of this are very clear: the
idea to create the “Catalog of press” appeared at the beginning of 90s that were “very unclear
times” for bessarabian realities, so the work is pioneering in domain of bibliography of bessarabian
press.
Analysis of sources. It is very important to note from the beginning that documentary information
about the history of bessarabian press is dispersed in different funds of Chisinau’s archives.
Those reflecting the activity of censorship institutions are mostly concentrated in the deposit of
Civil Gubernator of Bessarabia and in that of Chief of Chisinau gendarmes. Selected information
comprises a vast correspondence, marked as “strictly confidential”, between local administration
civil servants of different levels: Civil Gubernator of Bessarabia, Chief of Chisinau gendarmes, Public
prosecutor of Chisinau city, and people from superior institutions: General Gubernator of Bessarabia
and Novorossia and later, with central administration in St. Petersburg ( Main Department for Press
and Censorship issues). Abundance of this type of documents – office documents – reflects the
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