50 Lei Grigore Vieru

Grigore Vieru, the Romanian-language poet whose death in January 2009 from injuries sustained in a car accident near Chișinău prompted national mourning on both sides of the Prodnestrovian divide, is commemorated here less than two years after his passing. The National Bank issued this piece as part of a broader series honoring Moldovan cultural figures, a program that quietly carried political weight given Vieru's outspoken identification with Romanian linguistic and cultural identity at a time when that position remained contested official policy.