Municipal Library "B.P. Hasdeu": a Troubled History, Like the History of Bessarabia

The article analyzes the errors that intervened in the writing of the history of the two important libraries in Chisinau: the Municipal Library “B.P. Hasdeu” and the National Library of the Republic of Moldova. The history of the Municipal Library “B.P. Hasdeu”, entangled by times, vassalage and regimes, requires research, clarifications, contestations and demonstrations through historical, archival documents of institutional history. Thus, following a long research in the State Archives of the Republic of Moldova, Romania and the Regional Scientific Library in Odesa, of the texts of personalities such as Ștefan Ciobanu and Gheorghe Bezviconi, enough and convincing documents were found that demonstrate that the Municipal Library “BP Hasdeu” has, in this year 2022, 145 years of existence and cultural contribution to the intellectual development of the capital. Called, at the beginning, the Public Library of the City of Chisinau, the municipal library was founded by the mayor of Chisinau Carol Schmidt in 1877, who, later, in 1903, offered it the best premises in its history – the “Passage” room in the City Hall building. After 1944, Soviet historiography and, in particular, Petru Ganenco, introduced confusions and imposed a different history on the libraries of Chisinau