50 Lei Alecu Russo

Alecu Russo was a 19th-century Moldovan writer and revolutionary whose 1840 arrest and exile to a monastery by the Moldavian authorities came directly after authorities linked him to a banned theatrical performance of a politically charged play. His essay Studie Moldovană and his passionate advocacy for Romanian linguistic unity made him a recurring irritant to both Ottoman-tributary Moldavian authorities and later Romanian establishment figures who found his romanticism too radical.

The National Bank of Moldova has issued a consistent series of commemorative silvers honoring cultural figures tied to Moldovan national identity — a program with particular political weight given ongoing tensions over the shared Romanian-Moldovan heritage.