The Mihai Moroșanu Private Collection comprises various materials relating to the anti-regime activity of Mihai Moroșanu, one of the most famous Moldovan dissidents of the Soviet period, well-known for his staunch criticism of the regime and for his strong nationally oriented views. The collection consists of a number of personal files, interviews, photos and judicial materials relating to Moroșanu’s case, spanning the period from the early 1960s to the early 1990s. Due to his uncompromising resistance to the Soviet regime, Moroșanu is one of the very few authentic dissident figures in the Moldovan context.
This ad-hoc collection focuses on the case of Mihai Moroșanu, one of the most famous Moldovan dissidents of the Soviet period, well-known for his staunch criticism of the regime and for his strong nationally oriented views. The documents in this collection fall into several categories. The most important part of the materials deal with the criminal case against Moroșanu, opened in 1966. He was arrested on 28 July 1966 and sentenced to three years’ imprisonment on 2 November 1966, on the basis of Article 71 (undermining the national and racial equality of Soviet citizens) and Article 218 part 1 (hooliganism with aggravating circumstances) of the Penal Code of the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (MSSR). The accusation of “nationalism” leveled against Moroșanu entailed serious consequences in this period, especially in the context of the campaigns against local nationalism waged by the Soviet authorities. The incident directly leading to Moroșanu’s arrest and later conviction involved his insistence on speaking Romanian to a Russian shopkeeper in a central Chișinău shop. However, this apparently minor misdemeanour followed a longer history of his defiance of the Soviet regime, mainly related to Moroșanu’s earlier expulsion from the Moldavian Polytechnic Institute, in 1964, due to his organising and “instigating” a wreath-laying ceremony at a monument dedicated to the medieval ruler Stephen the Great, as an expression of public protest against the plans of the Soviet authorities to move the statue from the central square of Chișinău to a less prominent location. The floral wreath bore the inscription “from the youth of Moldavia.” This incident immediately provoked a harsh reaction on the part of the authorities. Aside from the documents directly related to Moroșanu’s case, a large share of the materials consists of his university records (including transcripts, exam papers, required autobiographical texts / CVs submitted during the admission process in 1961 and other similar materials), evaluations of his behaviour and moral features from his student years and from his workplace (kharakteristiki), as well as several newspaper articles, mainly from the late 1980s and early 1990s, connected to his legal “rehabilitation.” Most of these materials come from his personal file in the Archive of the Technical University of Moldova (formerly the Polytechnic Institute). Some of the collection’s files are privately owned by Moroșanu (including most of the newspaper articles from the 1980s).
Opis obsahu
The collection features several types of documentary materials. The most important category is represented by archival documents from the institutional archives of the two universities (the Chișinău State University and the Moldavian Polytechnic Institute) at which Moroșanu was enrolled during the 1960s. The earliest documents in these files are related to Moroșanu's admission to the university in 1961, and include academic records, exam papers, transcripts and similar materials. Overall, the files consist of various documents relating to Moroșanu’s studies, as well as the official papers concerning the reasons for his expulsion and his presumably “un-Soviet” behaviour during his student years. Another important type of documentary evidence is connected to the penal case opened against him. The most important piece in this category (and one of the most significant items of the collection) is the official sentence in Moroșanu’s case, pronounced on 28 November 1966. This document carefully summarised the main “anti-Soviet” activities carried out by the defendant throughout the 1960s. The collection also includes a number of interviews and newspaper articles, mainly from the late 1980s and early 1990s, which shed light on Moroșanu’s legal “rehabilitation” and, more significantly, on his legal action against the infamous second secretary of the Moldavian Communist Party, Viktor Smirnov, who had insulted the “offspring of the former kulaks” during a plenary meeting of the Central Committee on 30 May 1987. Moroșanu finally won the case in April 1990, when the Moldavian Supreme Court forced Smirnov to pay Moroșanu damages and to publicly apologise. Finally, another important part of the collection includes the interviews that Moroșanu gave to a number of Moldovan historians interested in his case (mainly Igor Cașu and Mihai Tașcă).
Taşcă, Mihai. 2010. "Rezistența anticomunistă: 'Naționalistul' Mihai Moroșanu" (Anti-communist resistance: Mihai Moroșanu, the 'nationalist'). Timpul.md, December 17. Accessed February 10, 2017. http://www.timpul.md/articol/nationalistul-mihai-morosanu-18740.html
Moroșanu, Mihai , interview by Cușco, Andrei, September 01, 2017. COURAGE Registry Oral History Collection
Cașu, Igor , interview by Cușco, Andrei, October 29, 2016. COURAGE Registry Oral History Collection
