Moldovans can now access military archives to learn about their ancestors' service in the Romanian Army
Citizens of the Republic of Moldova can obtain information about their grandparents and great-grandparents who served in the Romanian Army between 1918 and 1944. Documents held in Romanian military archives contain details regarding their military service, education, families, and property. Access to this information will be facilitated through a cooperation agreement between the archival institutions of the two countries, as announced on October 22 by the National Archives Agency (ANA) in Chișinău.
Under this agreement, the National Archives Agency of the Republic of Moldova and the Romanian National Military Archives will exchange copies of the historical documents they hold. The Chișinău institution is particularly interested in service registers of Bassarabian reservists who served in the Romanian Army during the interwar period and the Second World War.
These documents could help families reconstruct the history of relatives who served in the Romanian Army or were assigned to combat or auxiliary units. The registers also contain personal information that is not always found in other family records.
“The practical and immediate benefit of this Technical Agreement for citizens of the Republic of Moldova is that they will gain access to information regarding their grandparents and great-grandparents who were reservists, or who served in combat or auxiliary units of the Romanian Army during the interwar period and the Second World War,” the National Archives Agency states.
The institution says the documents will be available upon request. Since the registers also contain data concerning family members and property, applicants will be required to sign a declaration of personal responsibility regarding the protection of personal data.
In turn, Romanian archivists will receive copies of documents held in Chișinău. This includes recruitment records from Bălți, Cahul, Hotin, Lăpușna, Orhei, Soroca, and Tighina, as well as documents pertaining to various army corps from the 1918–1944 period. The two institutions will exchange documents annually, according to a schedule they will establish, and will not make any payments to each other.
The agreement followed discussions that began several years ago. In August 2023, a delegation from the National Agency of Archives of the Republic of Moldova visited the "General Constantin Costandache" Central Archival Repository in Pitești, where documents concerning individuals born in historical Bassarabia are kept.
The collaboration was formalized through a technical arrangement signed by the Director of the National Agency of Archives, Igor Cașu, and the Director of the Romanian National Military Archives, Gheorghe-Stelian Zamfira, who signed the document on October 1, 2026.
On October 22, a delegation from the Romanian military archives, led by Acting Director Marius Tudosă and historian Victor Martin, visited the institution in Chișinău. Representatives from the two institutions also discussed the preservation, conservation, and digitization of historical documents.
