O colecţie de desene şi litografii antireligioase din patrimoniul Muzeului Naţional de Istorie a Moldovei / Collection of anti-religious drawings and lithographs from the National Museum of History of Moldova

Abstract

National Museum of History of Moldova possesses a collection of anti-religious drawings and lithographs in an amount of 52 units. Of these, 24 lithographs relate to the series "Commandments and Symbols" (by B. Shirokorad), 11 drawings to the series "God on Earth", another 15 drawings touch different anti-religious topics (author A. Grabco). Graphic works of this collection, which is part of the anti-religious campaign, are characterized by mordant sense, bright colors, simple and catchy slogans denigrating and deriding everything that expressed religious beliefs. Using expressive art images along with the severity of the laws, the Communists hoped to convince the masses that religion is nothing more than "a manifestation of the decadence of capitalism", a consequence of the retrograde, the counter-revolutionary thinking an unforgivable crime in the Soviet Union. These works reflect only some of the methods from the rich arsenal used by the Soviet authorities in the fight against the Moldavian Orthodox Church.

Keywords

• museum collection
• anti-religious campaign
• Moldovan Orthodox Church