Lee Cojocaru, Boston University [615638]

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Lee Cojocaru, Boston University
The Construction, Deconstruction and Conflict of National Identities in
Moldova

ECPR General Conference, Montreal, August 2015
Introduction
The idea of nation -state has become so deeply embedded in our socio -political vocab ulary that it
is almost impossible to conceive of other forms of socio- political organization or expression
without reference to it.
People of new states are animated by a powerful motive: to be noticed , it is a search for identity,
and a demand that identity be publicly acknowledged as having import, a social assertion of the
self as ‘being somebody in the world.’1

The nation- state develops only where nationalism and a state, oriented towards a
particular nationalism, converge. Although the governments of post -Soviet Moldova intended to
develop a unitary national identity to serve as a foundation for the state, after more than two
decades, Moldova is still not a nation -state. N ot because it lacks nationalism, but because it has
two competing, diverging versions of nationalism. The story of Bessarabia/Moldavia/Moldova
clearly illustrates the process of a disputed national identity , caused by a succession of
constructed and de -constructed identities imposed on the people inhabiting this land. 2
This paper attempts to shed light on the way identities were constructed and deconstructed in the
case of Moldova, which led to the present -day conflict between Romanian and Moldovan

1. Clifford Geertz , Old Societies and New States (New York, 1963), 108.
2. Note that the terms “Moldavia/Moldavians” designate th e medieval state and the population residing in it while it
was under Russian and Soviet control and the population which had no national identity or an ethnic Moldovan
identity. The name of “Bessarabia” was introduced when the Eastern part of the principality of Moldavia (present day Moldova) was annexed in 1812 by Russia. This name has been used as a synonym for Eastern Moldavia ever
since. The modern name “Moldova” was (re) introduced by the nationalist movement in the 1980s and has been
used since then to designate the modern Republic of Moldova.

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nationalists. Part 1 briefly introduces the theoretical debate on what constitutes e thnic/national
identity and presents the evolution of various identities in Moldova. Part 2 gives an overview of
the creation of Bessarabia, the Russian (and later Soviet) policies towards the formation of
“Moldavian nation” and the rise of supporters of t his “Moldovan” identity. Part 3 presents how
Romanian ethnic nationalism emerged Bessarabia and later in Soviet Moldavia. Part 4 examines
the struggle of the Romanian and Moldovan nationalist camps in Moldova today.
1. National Identity and Its Evolution in M oldova
The primordialist school claims that ethnicity constitutes a fundamental feature of society and
that ethnic /national identity is natural and unalienable.3 They see ethnic identity as “essential” to
human identity and mostly inalterable. This means t hat ethnicity forms slowly and once formed,
tends to be exceptionally durable and persistent . Ethnicity, therefore, is defined by cultural and
biological heritage and is territorially rooted. In contrast, the instrumentalist approach emphasizes the rational -choice and interest -driven character of nationalism.
4 Instrumentalism
focuses on elite competition for resources and suggests that the manipulation of symbols is vital
for gaining the support of the masses and achieving politi cal goals. The s tructuralists (also
known as materialists and Marxists), identify some variation of material advancements in human history (modern state and its needs: print, public education, middle class) as the progenitor of
nationalism.
5 Unlike structuralists, who posit the existence of deterministic structures, the

3. This theory is also called essentialist, ethnonationalist, ethnosymbolist. Walker Connor, Ethnonationalism, A
quest to understanding (Prince ton University Press, 1994); Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (New
York: Basic Books, 1973) ; Anthony D. Smith, The Ethnic Origins of Nations (New York: Basil Blackwell, 1986).
4. Daniel Bell, “Ethnicity and Social Change,” in Ethnicity: Theory and Experience, edited by N. Glazer and D.P.
Moynihan, (Cambrid ge: Harvard University Press, 1975); Paul Brass, Ethnicity and Nationalism (Sage Publications:
New Delhi, 1991) .
5. Eric Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1990). Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983) ;
Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (New York :

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cultural approach (Max Weber, Liah Greenfeld) emphasizes meaning and human action.6
Ethnicity does not constitute an objective group, but only “facilitates group formation of any
kind, particularly in the political sph ere.”7 And it is this political community “no matter how
artificially organized that inspires the belief in common ethnicity.”8 According to Greenfeld,
identity (national and not only) is not a reflection of material world, but a mental process. “It is a
mental image of the social structure and one’s specific place in it… , [which] orients [one’s]
actions.”9 Therefore, nationalism must precede the nation, because it is the worldview that
“locates the source of individual identity within a people, which is se en as the bearer of
sovereignty, the central object of loyalty, and the b asis of collective solidarity.”10
According to Greenfeld, a nationalist vision of reality is predicated on three principles: it
is an essentially secular vision, fundamentally egalita rian, and it assumes popular sovereignty.
Nations removed sovereignty from traditional authorities, such as God or a royal lineage, and
vested it within the people.11
We are presently witnessing a conflict between the “Moldovan” identity constructed by
the Russian authorities in the nineteenth century and perfected by the Soviets in the twentieth
century; and the Romanian national identity which emerged at the end of the nineteenth century
under Russian control, developed when Moldova was united with Romania in the interwar year, and reappeared in the 1980s when Moldova was part of the Soviet Union. Today, t he Romanian

Verso, 1983) . Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism
(New York : Verso, 1983) .
6. Max Weber, Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology, ed. Guenther Roth and Charles Wittich
(Berkeley: Calif ornia University Press, 1978) . Liah Greenfeld, Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity (Harva rd
University Press, 1992).
7. Greenfeld, Nationalism: Five Roads , 389.
8. Greenfeld, Nationalism: Five Roads , 391.
9. Liah Gr eenfeld and Nicholas Prevelakis , “The Formation of Ethnic and National Identities,” in t he International
Studies Encyclopedia, (W iley-Blackwell, 2010) , 2516.
10. Greenfeld, Nationalism: Five Roads, 3.
11. Greenfeld and Prevelakis, “The Formation of Ethnic ,” 2516.

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and Moldovan nationalism s are fighting to dictate the terms of this new , Post -Soviet national
identity . The two centuries of overlapping and intermittent Russian and Romanian control over
this land provided plenty of ammunition for each camp.
Nationalism is attractive to large masses of people because it provides its holders with
dignity. In many societies, the individuals most attuned to iss ues of identity and concerned about
dignity are the intellectuals. Oftentimes, a lienated from the traditional society , intelligentsia felt
a disequilibrium between perceived high self -value and its low social status. This imbalance also
known as anomie act ed as the motivating factor in the creation of new ideology of nationalism ,
which propels them to a new dignified social status .12 Not accidentally, it was the intellectuals
who embraced nationalism, both in Russian Bessarabia and later in Soviet Moldavia. Moreover,
Moldova, like most post –Soviet societies, experienced cultural trauma as a consequence of the
unexpected, rapid and fundamental changes brought by the end of the Soviet Union. Insecurity
and uncertainty became a normal experience of daily life fo r many citizens. A breakdown of
social trust and a loss of a sense of agency – anomie – ensued. Suddenly, culturally shared
templates were no longer appropriate for guiding behaviors in the changing socioeconomic and
cultural contexts and therefore nationa l identity became the default identity.13
The table below summarize s the historical evolution of identities in Bessarabia, Soviet
Moldavia, and Moldova. Each identity was filled with various cultural elements and had its
promoters. Some identities have be en shared only by a minority, while others have been held by
a majority of the population.

12. Clifford Geertz, "Ideology as a Cultural System," in the Interpretation of Cultures , (New York: Basic Books,
1973), 204. S ee also Emile Durkheim, The Division of Labor in Society , trans. W.D. Halls (New York: Free Press
1984).
13. Piotr Sztompka, “The Trauma of Social Change: A Case of Post -Communist Societies,” In J. C. Alexander et al.,
eds., Cultural Trauma and Collective I dentity (Berkley: University of California Press, 2004).

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Ethnic Identities in Moldova 1812 -2015

Identity Period Agents/Intereste
d Party Population Character/content
Bessarabian
Moldavians
1812 –
1991 None Majority
(peasants) Local, Christian, non –
national identity

Assimilated
Moldavians/
Russians 1840 –
1918
1945-
1989 Tsarist Russia Nobility,
Communist
members
(career
opportunity) Russian nationalism,
Russian culture
(language and literature),
xenophobia, anti –
Semitism

Bessarabian
Romanians 1840 –
1940 Romanian
Nationalists both
in Romania and
Bessarabia Intellectuals
(with time most
of the literate
population) Romanian nationalism –
Romanian language,
literature, history;
xenophobic and anti –
Semitic as well

Mold avians
(Soviet) 1924 –
1989 USSR,
Communist Party
Initially Party
Members;
With time –
majority
(peasants,
workers)
Class -based initially
(Moldavians were the
working people,
Romanians were
bourgeois exploiters and
their administration).
Transformed into ethnic
identity (Cyrillic
alphabet, Slavonic
words)
Moldovans 1989 –
2015
Former -party
members,
collective farm
managers,
politicians Majority
(peasants,
workers) Moldovan nationalism –
historical claims from
Medieval Moldavia,
admits Russian influence
and avoids cultural
debates as much as
possible; claims of civic
nationalism,
“Moldavian” language in

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the Constitution
Romanians
1960s –
2015
Intellectuals Minority
(journalists,
teachers,
writers) Romanian nationalism –
cultural unity with
Romania (Lat in
alphabet, Romanian
history and literature)

Note that many in rural Moldova have attached to neither a Romanian nor a Moldovan national
identity, but rather have a non- national, localized ethnic identity.
2. The B irth of Bessarabia and the Construction of Moldovan Identity
During the 1806- 1812 war with the Ottoman empire, Russia’s goal was the annexation of both
Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, but the threat of invasion from Napoleon’s France
forced Russia to settle for a smaller territory – E astern Moldavia /Bessarabia ( a territory on which
present -day Republic of Moldova lies ). After annexation, in order to make Russian rule attractive
for Christian Orthodox people of the Balkans, Tsar Alexander I decided to leave the local laws in
place and exempted the population from poll taxes and military service for three years.14
At this time, the national spirit in Bessarabia was “ weak ” and “self-interest of family or class
was more important [than nationality] .”15
After the Crimean war (1853- 1856) , the r ebellion in Poland (1863), and the Union of
Romanian Principalities (1859) , Russia focused on imposing full control over Bessarabia to

14. Dinu Postarencu , O istorie a Basarabiei in date si documente, 1812- 1940 [A History of Bessarabia in dates and
Documents] (Chisinau: Cartier, 1998), 66.
15. George Jewsbury , The Russian Annexation of Bessarabia: 1774 -1828, A study of Imperial Expansion (Boulder:
East European Monographs, 1976), 8.

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prevent Romanian claims on this territory. Russian administration employed larg e-scale
Russification policies in schools, administration and churches . In 1892, Pompey Batyushkov, a
Russian Interior Ministry’s employee , was sent to prove that Bessarabian Moldavians are not
Romanian. A staunch Russian nationalist, Batyushkov described his role as a Russian scholar to
presen t “the Russian point of view and to prove Bessarabia’s ancient bonds to the Slavic -Russian
tribe.”16 Batyushkov insisted that the Slavs had been the predominant element in Bessarabia
from the sixth century onward and the 1812 annexation was nothing but “a r eunion of Bessarabia
with Russia. ”17 Batyushkov openly recommended that authorities use the public education
system to R ussify the local s:
If we want to save Bessarabia from being the object of Romanophile ambitions and agitations,
and if we want to form a n organic union with Russia, then we must hasten to utilize our schools
for the purpose of changing (let us hope) half of these Moldavian peasants into Russians.18
Under Russian rule , Romanian -language newspapers appeared sp oradically and briefly .
Out of 254 periodical publications in Bessarabia in the period 1854- 1916, only sixteen were in
Romanian language.
19 With trans -border traffic restricted, access to Romanian and Western
books dwindled severely. Some Romanian books made their way into Bessarabia, but only if
purchased in St. Petersburg or Moscow and with authorization from a censure committee in
Odessa.20 Alexei Mateevici, a Bessarabi an poet, complained :
The greatest difficulty I had was that I lacked the necessary books for guidance. I was totally
isolated from literature published in Regat [Romanian Kingdom]. […] The hunger for books in
our native language is indescribable.21

16. Pompey Batyushkov, Bessarabia: A Historical Description, [Bessarabia, istoricheskoe opisaniye] (St.
Petersburg , Edition of the Ministry of the Interior, 1892), 2.
17. Batyushkov, Bessarabia : A Historical Description , 5.
18. Batyushkov, Bessarabia: A Historical Description , 172.
19. Boris Trubetskoi, Периодические Печати Бессарабии [Periodical Prints of Bessarabia], in Jewsbury, The
Russian Annexation of Bessar abia, 9.
20. Zamfir Arbore, Basarabia in Secolul XIX [Bessarabia in XIX century] (Bucharest: Inst itutul de Arte Grafice
Carol Gobl, 1898), 529.
21. Alexei Mateevici, Scrieri (Iasi, 1989), 108.

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Similar language restrictions were imposed in churches . In 1871, t he newly appointed
Metropolitan Pavel Lebedev discovered t hat many of the priests spoke little, if any Russian.22
Infuriated by this, he suppressed the Romanian version of the official newspaper of Bessarabian
Church and burned all the books in Romanian at the Chisinau Seminary .23 All Church
documents and registrie s were now kept only in Russian language and priests were given a six
months deadline to learn Russian.24 Metropolitan Lebedev’s language policies raised a lot of
resistance as most priests kept using Romanian language, not because they were ardent
national ists, but mostly because their parishioners were illiterate and resistant to the imposition
of a foreign language .
In education, most of the new public schools were teaching in Russian language since
1824, when count Vorontsov instruct ed that “Moldavian [ Romanian] should be taught to the
students who want to learn it only as a second language.”25 By 1912, out of 1,709 primary
schools only one third taught in Romanian language.26 This fact did not help combat high
illiteracy among rural population (mostly Mol davians) and ensured that Moldavians were mostly
unaffected by Russian culture and Russification of the schools, churches, mass -media, and
administration.
After the Union of Bessarabia with Romania in 1918, the new Soviet government never
recognized the u nion and insisted that Bessarabia’s majority population constituted a
separate nation whose cultural distinctiveness was being obfuscated by Romania . To prove

22. Petre Constantinescu -Iasi, Circulația vechilor cărți bisericești românești în Basarabia sub ruși [The
Circulation of Old Church Books in Bessarabia under Russ ian control] (Chisinau, 1929), 5.
23. This happened the same year when Bessarabia lost its privileged status and became a gubernya.
24. Charles Upson , Clark, Bessara bia. Russia and Roumania on the Black Sea, (New York: Dodd, Mead and
Company, 1927), 104 .
25. Ion G. Pelivan, La Bessarabie sous le régime russe (Paris, 1919), 19.
26. Ștefan Ciobanu, Basarabia (Chisinau: Universitas, 1993) , 260.

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this thesis, some historians and writers – most of whom had a Slavic and not a Romanian
background – rehashed Batyushkov’s old claims and began to assert the existence of a unique
Moldavian nationality with a language and history distinct from that of Romania.27 The same
theory was later espoused by the Soviet authorities when they regained Bessarabia after World
War II and named it Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (MSSR). In his 1974 book, Arte m
Lazarev, the head of the Soviet Moldavi an Academy of Science, claimed that there are two East
Romance nationalities – Moldavian and Romanian.28 A variation of this view was later embraced
by many “Moldovanists ,” who stated that the Bessarabian population developed into a separate
nation in the nineteenth century when Bessarabians did not share the historical and cultural
experiences of the unified Romanian na tion.
Before USSR regained Bessarabia from Romania, in 1924 t he Soviets decided to
establish a Soviet autonomous republic on the eastern bank of Nistru river , the Moldavian
Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (MASSR).29 The goal behind MASSR was either to
Sovietize Romania or to annex Bessarabia, thus “ uniting the separated Moldavian nation.” Either
way, the MASSR represented an element of Soviet political pressure on Romania.30
To support their claims on Bessarabia, the Soviets engaged in an entire process of
fabricating a new language.31 The Cyrillic alphabet was immediately introduced in the
“Moldavian” language in MASSR. Because the newly -fabricated language was based on a very

27. This is also the period w hen the Transnistria was artificially created, carved up out of Ukrainian territory in order
to claim unification with Moldova, see Barbara Jelavich, History of the Balkans, Twentieth Century (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1983) .
28. Artem Lazarev, Молдавская Советская Госыдарственность и Бессарабский Вопрос [Soviet Moldavian
Statehood and Bessarabian Question], (Chisinau: Cartea Moldoveneasca, 1974), 530 -535.
29. Charles King , The Moldovans. Romania, Russia, and the Politics of Culture. ( Stanford: Hoover Institution Press,
2000 ), 52.
30. King, The Moldovans. Romania, Russia, 55.
31. Charles King “The Ambivalence of Authenticity, or How the Moldovan Lan guage Was Made.” Slavic
Review 58 (1999 ).

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archaic vocabulary and l acked the necessary terminology , the Communists had pr oblems using it
in press, science , or in official communiqués. To address this, a whole new vocabulary of
Russian words with Romanian suffixes was introduced. However, t he new tongue was so
removed from the actual language spoken by the population that it was incomprehensible to the
masses .32
Stalin’s policies in Soviet Moldavian Republic after the World War II focused on the
negation of national culture and the destruction of any form of social organization outside the
Communist Party , which consisted of m ass killings, arrests and deportations. Among those
hundreds of thousands deported were teachers, priests, policemen, holders of political and administrative positions, etc.
The deportations, arrests, executions and deliberately induced famines were appli ed in Soviet
Moldavia with a rigor which probably claimed the life of one Moldavian out of ten between 1945
and 1953.33

With most of the local intellectual elite gone to Romania or deported to Siberia, the memory and
the identity of “Romanianness” diminis hed drastically after the war. There were only isolated
incidents of anti -Soviet resistance in.34
After independence, newly -elected Moldova n president Mircea Snegur and his supporters
refused to associate with anything Romanian , maintaining the Soviet view that Moldovans are
ethnically distinct from Romanians. The Moldovanist politicians understood that moving too
close to Romania would jeopardize their positions of power.35 Snegur denounced pan-

32. For example all modern scientific words were replaced with the limited words that existed in the vocabulary of
the peasants at the time. This led to some hilarious results. For instance the term “uric acid” was replaced with “oțet
chișălnic” [piss -vinegar]!
33. Jonathan Eyal, “Moldavians.” In The Nationalities Question in the Soviet Union. edited by Graham Smith,
(Longman, 1990), 126 .
34. Igor Grecul , Расцвет Молдавской Социалистической Нации. [The Flourishing of Moldavian Socialist
Nation] (Chisinau: Cartea Moldovenească, 1974 ), 158.
35. Charles King, “Moldovan Identity and the Politics of Pan -Romanianism,” Slavic Review 53 (1994).

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Romanianism as betrayal and accused Moldova’s intellectuals of doubting “the legitimacy and
historical foundation of our right to be a state, to call ourselves the Moldovan people.”36
3. Rise of Romanian N ationalism
Just like other nationalist movements in Eastern Europe, Romanian nationalis t movement, which
emerged in t he nineteenth century, adopted the national model from the West, but filled it with
domestic cultural content . Although, they were initially inspired by French nationalism,
Romanian intellectuals had settled on the ethnic -collectivistic version of nationalism espoused by
German intellectuals. The reason for this is that unlike the French, but similarly to the Germans,
Romanians buil t a nation and a national culture before they could have a state. Just like in
Germany, Romanian intellectuals imprinted an eth nic character to their national identity, because
they had to focused on the task of creat ing an original literature, compos ing music, wr iting
history and philosophy, publishing magazines and newspapers, establishing theaters and
museums , educat ing teacher s and opening public schools.37 After the 1859 Union that formed
Romania, Romanian intellectuals obtained their nation -state and focused on spreading that
identity to the masses .
In Bessarabia, Romanian national ideas emerged a few decades later than in th e
Romanian Principalities (Moldavia and Wallachia) . Some nobles and intellectuals were
connected to the cultural life of Romania and developed a Romanian national identity , despite all
the efforts of the Russian authorities to prevent it . Ion Doncev’s fift h edition of the ABC in 1863

36. Mircea Snegur, “Republica Moldova este țara tuturor cetațenilor săi,” Pamȋnt și Oameni, 12 February 1994, 3.
37 Romanian nationalism emerged in the nineteenth century, but signs of national consciousness appeared m uch
earlier in the seventeenth century. First, it was the Moldavian humanists, who under the influence of the Polish
Catholic schools discovered the common Latin/Roman origin of Moldavians, Wallachians, and Transylvanians. Later, the Union between the Cath olic and the Orthodox Churches in Transylvania gave rise to first cogent
nationalist program espoused by the Uniate bishop, Inochentie Micu- Klein. Later, the rebellion of Tudor
Vladimirescu in Wallachia (1821) spread nationalist ideas from the clergy to th e lower nobility and the military.
Only a decade later, after the opening of the trade with Western Europe when young boyars traveled to Western Europe and were exposed to nationalist ideas, Romanian nationalism emerged.

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no longer had the word “Moldavian” in the title but was named “Cursul primitiv de limba
rumînă” [The Primary Course of Romanian Language] .38 Doncev’s book was printed in Latin
script and had content similar to the ones published in the Romania .
The most promine nt intellectual of his generation, the historian and phil osopher,
Alexandru Hașdeu (1811 -1874) despite studying in Russia and Germany, was a staunch
Romanian nationalist. On the occasion of the 1859 Union of the Principalities, he sent a famous
letter addressed to “our Romanian brothers” :
I belong with body and bone to the same bones from which you are made ; and in my veins flows
the same Romanian blood as it does in yours. […] to live without you and outside of you, oh, my
dear Fatherland is possible, but a life like this is worse than dying a thousand times an d
resurrecting every time just for a moment.39

As first nationalist ideas emerged in Bessarabia throughout the nineteenth century, most
of the holders of these ideas had to flee to Romania to avoid being censured or imprisoned by the
Russian authorities. T his is how the émigré Alecu Russo described his impression of his life in
Bessarabia:
We are fugitives in the parental hut and foreigners in the land paid by with our blood! The
intruders told us: “This is our land and all who live on it belong to us, as w ell as the fields, the
hills, the hamlets, the towns and the villages, the houses with their yards, all that moves and breaths.”
40

If the flourishing cultural space of Romania attracted the Bessarabian intellectuals , the
nobility found benefits (land and service careers) in remaining loyal to Russia. Romanian
nationalists/ intellectuals lambasted and criticized what they saw an act of betrayal on the part of
the nobility (the boyars ). Because they valued their culture so much, it was inconceivable for
these intellectuals that someone could renounce one’s culture. Zamfir Arbore was among those
who strongly c ondemned the boyars for losing their language and culture:

38. Postarencu , O istorie a Basarabi ei in date si documente, 117.
39. Arbore, Basarabia in Secolul XIX, 470.
40. Mihai Adauge, “Istoria și faptele,” [History and Facts] Dnestr, 4 Chisinau, (1990): 115.

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The Russian administration transformed the Moldavian boyars into bureaucrats devoted to Russ ia
and enemies of Romanian people. One can rarely hear Romanian spoken in their houses and
many do not know how to speak it.41

With the access to Romanian literature and media severely restricted , there w ere few pro –
Romanian voices left in Bessarabia . Only when the youth (some of them, Russified) went to
study in other Russian cities and encountered representatives of other national groups from the
empire, did a national consciousness emerge in their minds. Studying in the cities of the Russian empire, youn g Bessarabians became active members of the political underground world. One of
the strongest circles was at the Dorpa t University in Tartu, Estonia . The leader of the Dorpat
group, Ioan Pelivan, had experienced an interesting life transition from a loyal Russian subject to becomi ng a staunch Romanian nationalist.
Like many other Bessarabian intellectuals and nationalists, Pelivan started his education
at the Kishinev (Chisinau) seminary, where studies were conducted in Russian, while Romanian was relegated by teachers to the status of “the language of the mujiks .” At t he seminary “all our
thoughts, our love and our minds were directed towards Russia,” recalled Pelivan in his
memoirs.
42 It was later, in his college years at Dorpat when , by contagion with othe r national
groups, Pelivan developed a sense of national identity of his own. The sight of portraits of
national poets and writers in their colleagues’ dorm rooms (like the Ukrainian Taras Shevchenko; the Poles – Mickiewicz and Sienkiewicz), “left a feelin g of shame with all of us
Moldavians who knew nothing about our past and had no knowledge of a Bessarabian poet or
writer.”
43
Pelivan and others decided to form the Pământenia Basarabeană [Bessarabian
Compatriots] – students' cultural association – at whos e meetings they sta rted reading Romanian

41. Arbore, Basarabia in Secolul XIX, 541.
42. Ioan Pelivan, “Basarabia cea diferita de Rusia, ” [Bessarabia different from Russia] Magazin istoric 3 (2006): 38.
43. Idem, 38.

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literature and singing folk songs. They contacted cultural clubs and other Bessarabians in
Romania and started smuggling Romanian literature into the Russian cities in which they were
studying. For example, in a l etter written on October 25, 1901, Pelivan asked Gheorghe Madan
to send some books, mentioning that “the boys are developing the taste for Romanian books and
culture , and are awakening a national consciousness.”44 His colleague, Vasile Oatu, who could
barel y write in Romanian, sent a letter asking Madan to ship more books about Romanian
history, saying: “Myself a Romanian, I’ve been looking for a long time now to accustom myself
with Romanian culture and especially its history.”45 In 1902, however, most of the members of
Pământenia were arrested and sentenced to prison on several accounts: for organizing an illegal
and revolutionary society; for political propaganda against the regime; and for Moldavian separatism.
Half a century later, in Soviet Moldavia, despite the fact that whole villages and most of
intellectuals were executed or deported to Siberia, Romanian nationalism persisted . In 1966,
Mihai Morosanu, a student at the Polytechnic Institute in Chisinau, was condemned to three years of work camp for protesting the removal of the statue of Stephen the Great from the center of Chișinau. The same year, another nationalist, Gheorghe Muruziuc, had a similar fate for raising the tricolor flag on a sugar factory in Alexandreni. In 1967, three conservatory students (Postola che, Cuciureanu, and Cemȃrtan) received sentences between four and seven years, for
anti-Soviet propaganda and “nationalism” because they had promoted the reunification of
Moldavia and Bukovina with Romania. Many nationalists were forcibly interred into ps ychiatric
clinics, while many others lost their jobs and careers.
46

44. Pelivan’s Correspondence in Destin Romanesc , 5-6 (1999): 6.
45. Idem, 7 .
46. Vasile Graur, De te voi uita Basarabie [If I Forget You, Bessarabia] (Chisinau, 1999), 8.

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Russification policies failed to fully dislodge Romanian culture from the minds of the
new generation of ethnic Moldavian intellectuals. Since the old guard of historians and writers
educat ed at Tiraspol Pedagogical Institute in Transnistria had to retire , some works of Romanian
writers like Eminescu, Coșbuc and Goga were reintroduced in the school textbooks while a
course on local history was introduced in some universities.47 By early 1970s, this new
generation of Moldavian intellectuals made the inferenc e that, if classics of their literature with
whom they identified, like Eminescu and Alecsandri, considered themselves Romanian,
therefore they themselves we re also Romanian.48
Many young nationalists in Soviet Moldavia left Chisinau to escape Communist
harassment. In the Russian cities , young Moldavians had access to libraries and bookstores filled
with Romanian literature, history, and press, which were forbidden in their home capital,
Chișinău. Although, they could not organize like their predecessors at Dorpat and Kiev (who formed Pământenia Basarabeană and Desteparea ), the young nationalists had meetings to sing
and recite Romanian poetry. Moreover, they were encouraging their friends and acquaintances to
continue their “fight for Romanian revival.” This is what Mircea Druc, who would later become the prime -minister of Moldova from the nationalist Popular Front , wrote to his younger brother
Vlad in 1962:
You should try and open a disc ussion club for improvement of the language. You have to teach
people around you about the necessity of studying their own language, to read Romanian
literature, to pronounce correctly. First of all, do not forget that we are Moldavians, and,
therefore, Ro manians.”49

Romanian nationalist s like Alexandru Șoltoianu, Gheorghe Ghimpu, Valeriu Graur, and
Alexandru Usatiuc were arrested and tried in 1972 organizing a nationalist organization – The

47. Until then only the history of USSR and the Communist Party were studied.
48. King, The Moldovans. Romania, Russia, 108.
49. Viorel Patrichi, Mircea Druc sau Lupta cu Ultimul Imperiu. [Mircea Druc and the Battle with The Last Empire]
(Bucharest: Zamolxe, 1998 ), 55.

16

National Front. They were fighting to establish Romanian language as a state language, to
organize free and fair elections; to exit Soviet Union and to ultimately unite with Romania. Most
in the group had the fate of their Bessarabian predecessors who were sentenced and sent to harsh
Siberia n prisons .
These cases are in dicative of how education and culture in both Bessarabia and Soviet
Moldavia led inevitably to Romanian nationalism. Drawn to the cultural space represented by Romania, these nationalists did not have to write their own history and literature, or reinvent
their origin. All they had to do was to adopt the culture from across the Prut River.
50 This
importance of culture in the formation of Romanian nationalism imprinted the ethnic character to
it. This is how one of the Romanian nationalists, Iurie Roșca, desc ribed his identity in 1995:
Like any Romanian, I was born in the midst of a Church, in the midst of a kind, in the midst of a
family. These are realities given to me by God which I cannot and wish not modify. Because
these realities do not represent an ac t of volition, I cannot do anything else but orient all my
efforts to preserve and affirm these values which I received through birth.51

After Gorbachev’s Glasnost’ reform in the 1980s opened up the public space for criticism
and allowed opposition to the Communist Party to emerge, Romanian intellectuals in Moldavia
quickly took on that role . Reform -oriented intellectuals gained editorial control of several mass
circulation newspapers ( Literatura și Arta [Literature and Art] and Invățamȋnt Public [Public
Education]) and began to espouse publicly the case for radical restructuring.52 The i ntellectuals
used the newfound free speech and freedom of assembly to organize themselves into a cohe sive

50. Gheo rghe Negru in the Introduction to “Ioan Pelivan’s Correspondence,” in Destin Romanesc 5 -6 (63- 64)
(2009): 7.
51. Iurie Rosca, “Dupa Exercitii de luciditate,” Contrafort, (August 1995).
52. William Crowther, “The Politics of Ethno -National Mobilization: Nationalism and Reform in Soviet Moldavia,”
The Russian Review 50 (1991): 188.

17

movement – the Moldovan Popular Front. Soon the Front would rally thousands to gather in
Chișinău to protest the status of their native language.53
The Front demanded to recognize that Romanian and “Moldavian” are one and the same
tongue.54 The claims to language and cultural affirmation of the intellectuals made it increasingly
clear, once again after 1900s, that this new identity could not be defined without reference to Romania.
55 Latin script was soon adopted along with the Romanian anthem Deșteaptă -te
Române [Romanian Arise] as Moldova’s anthem and Romanian tricolor as the official flag of
Moldova. The Popular Front eschewed the “Moldavian” Soviet identity and declared:
The historic name of our people, which we have carried for centuries – a right to which chronicles
and manuscripts, historical documents from the modern and contemporary periods, and the
classics of marxism -leninism testify – is Romanian and the name of the language is Romanian
Language.56

At its second congress in February 1990, the Popular Front openly called for exit from USSR
and for union with Romania. However, the majority of the population was fearful of such drastic changes, especially since the Moldovanist politicians opposed the nationalists from the Front and
rallied the peasants to oppose the union with Romania.
57 In 1993, the Front split when a group
left and formed the Congress of Intellectuals which militated for a slower and gradual integration
with Romania, rather than immediate political union. Among them, poet Grigore Vieru admitted that intellectuals would first have to take up the difficult task of reawakening the sense of

53. The leaders of the Front were mainly writers and journalists like Grigore Vieru, Leonida Lari, Dumitru
Matcovschi, Nicolae Daija , Valentin Mandacanu, Nicolae Matcas, Constantin Tanase, and Vasile Bahnaru.
54. Eyal, “Moldavians ,” 132.
55. Eyal, “Moldavians,” 131.
56. “Documentul final al Marii Adunari Naționale,” [The Final Document of The Great National Meeting] Literatura
si Arta, 31 August, 1989, 2.
57. In retrospect, the union was p ossible as the case of East Germany illustrates. E ven there the polls were showing
for a long time that there was not a majority for the union. Many East Germans feared to be seen inferior by those in
the western part and hesitated. In Moldova, Snegur and many of his deputies opposed the union because they
realized that it would mean their political death.

18

“Romanianness” within the rest of the population, before unification could be considered.58 In
other words, in order to construct the Romanian ident ity they had the task of de -constructing the
Soviet project of “Moldavian” nation.
4. Moldovanism versus Romanian Nationalism
The first Russian census in Bessarabia was conducted in 1817 and found Moldavians
(Romanians) to represent 86 percent of the populati on, Ukrainians – 6.5 percent, Jews – 4.2
percent.59 Because of Russian colonization, b y mid -century the proportion of Moldavians
(Romanians) in Bessarabia’s population decreased to 65 percent.60 A century later, in 1992, the
census revealed that 64.5 percent were Moldavians (Romanians) , 13.8 percent Ukrainians, 13
percent Russians, 3.5 percent Gagauz, 3 percent Bulgarians.
The identity issue has been used in every elect oral campaign, socio -economic and political
topics being replaced by debates about history and language. Some experts and commentators
(i.e. King and Druc ), believe that the rise of Moldovanist movement was mostly interest- based
and prompted by the desire to hold the positions of power. Although this is true, the main reason for th e rejection of Romanian culture is that people like Snegur and his allies were not ready for
such a step. The y were not familiarized with Romanian culture , as they grew up immersed in
Russian culture, and thought of themselves as Moldavians. Moldovanists and their elec torate
formed mostly of peasants, felt too awkward when speaking literary Romanian. With their thick
accent, Russian calques and archaic dialectal expressions, Moldovanists felt out of place and
embarrassed when contrasted their speech to the highly educat ed intellectuals, just like they were

58. Grigore Vieru, “ Unirea nu se proclama la mitinguri,” Dimineata, 27 November 1991, 1, 5.
59. Ion Nistor , Istoria Basarabiei. (Bucharest: Humanitas, 1991 ), 103.
60. Idem.

19

embarrassed by the Russian cultural dominance under the Soviets. To eschew this feeling of
frustration, they chose a third way – neither with Romania, nor with Russia.
The isolation of the Bessarabian peasants protect ed them from the Russification, thus
helping preserve a localized and village -based identity. In fact, there were two parallel worlds
coexisting in Bessarabia and Soviet Moldavia: the rural world , illiterate and mainly Romanian –
speaking and lacking any nat ional identity; and the urban, much smaller in size, ethnically –
diverse and dominated by the Russian language and culture. The rural world had no national
consciousness, only a folklore -based culture, which was preserved due to its isolation from the
city. The urban world was dominated by other ethnic groups (usually Jews, followed by Russians
and Ukrainians, and some Germans in the South). In the nineteenth century, a Romanian nationalist discourse had no audience in the cities while in villages the messag e and its vectors
were not adjusted to the illiterate audience. However, with time, more Moldavians moved into the cities and were exposed to education and nationalist idea. T hroughout the twentieth century a
major ity of peasants remained with a local ethnic ide ntity despite the efforts of the Soviet and
Romanian authorities .
61
Lately, every year, Romanians organize marches to celebrate the 1918 union of
Bessarabia with Romania on March 27th and promot e the idea of reuni ting with Romania. In
turn, they are accused by Moldovanists of destroying Moldova’s socio- political stability and
Moldova’s statehood.
We are celebrating a historic date in the past of our people – March 27 – the Union of Bessarabia
with Romania. We believe that, just like those who criticiz e us have the right to identify as
Moldovans; we also have the right to call ourselves Romanians.62

61. Jennifer Cash, “Origins, Memory, and Identity: “Villages” and the Politics of Nationalism in the Republic of
Moldova.” East European Politics and Societies 21 (2007).
62. “Declaratia Platformei Civice Actiuinea 2012,” Jurnal MD, March 26, 2012.

20

Romanian nationalists also commemorate the day of invasion of Romanian Bessarabia by the
Soviets in June 1940. In contrast, the Moldovanist camp avoids ment ioning the deportations and
famine caused by the Soviets after the annexation of Bessarabia. In fact, they treat Russians as liberators and celebrate Victory Day on May 9
th. Even Christmas is a subject of debate:
Romanians celebrate it following the Gregor ian calendar on December 25th, while Moldovanists
follow the Russian Church and Julian calendar which celebrates Christmas on January 7th. Thus
even the celebration of Christmas serves as identity marker in this battle of nationalisms.
The chart below is a summary of all the various identity transitions of people residing on this
land.
Evolution of Ethnic Ide ntities in Moldova since 1300s

 Moldavian into Russian: many Moldavian nobles have assimilated into Russian culture. In
fact, it was a transition from an ethnic local identity into the Russian national identity.
 Moldavian into Romanian: most intellectuals like Hașdeu, Stere and Pelivan. T his wa s the

21

transition from an ethnic local identity to the Romanian national identity.
 Moldavian into Soviet Moldavian: Communist ideologues who helped build the concept of
“Moldavian” nation. It is difficult to say whether it was a national identity, but it
definitely presented elements of ethnicity.
 Soviet Moldavian into Russian: many mixed families and assimilated locals.
 Soviet Moldavian into Moldovan: many politicians like Snegur, who transitioned
effortlessly to this new identity after the fall of the USS R.
 Soviet Moldavian to Romanian: many intellectuals and urbanites who discovered their
belonging to Romanian culture
 Bessarabian Romanian to Romanian: Mircea Druc and many in the older generation of
intellectuals, who had their identity instilled by their family in their youth after World
War II, despite the efforts of the Soviets to dislodge it.
 Moldovan to Romanian: the younger educated generation of post -Soviet era.
To summarize, Romani an ethnic nationalism reemerged under Soviet rule despite all the
attempts to eliminate it. Romanian nationalists were the strongest in the period of 1988 -1991,
when they were at the forefront of liberation and language movement. Once independence was achieved, Moldovanists took control of the power and marginaliz ed the nationalists. Since then,
Moldovanists have tried to build a separate na tional identity to legitimize the existence of the
new state, while Romanian nationalists have strived to thwart their efforts and keep pushing for union with Romania. The Moldovanist camp has managed to maintain independence, but continues to struggle in creating a unified national identity , because Romanian nationalists
(along with Russian nationalists and other minorities) challenge the legitimacy of the state itself.
Romanian nationalism has historical and cultural support, but is shared mostly by a minority of

22

educated people. The 2004 census 75.8 percent declared themselves Moldavians and only 2.2
percent of the population self -identified as Romanians.63 However, in period since the census,
various surveys indicate d that between 5 and 28 percent of the population self -identified as
Romanians .64
The Romanian nationalist maintain their claim that Moldovans are nothing but
ethnic Romanians who were late to develop Romanian consciousness because of the
Russification policies applied in Moldova during the last two centuries. They show disdain
for Moldovan identity because they see it as an artificial Soviet construct. On the other
side, the Moldovanists claim that Moldovans are a distinct nation, because it formed separately from Romania and under the impact of the Russian culture. They accept that
Moldovans share some aspects of culture with Romanians , but nevertheless, they claim
that a separate historical experience caused Moldovans to develop a distinct identity.
Unlike the more linear cases of emergence of nationalism, Moldova has seen a rather
angular trajectory of nationalism: Romanian nationalism (late nineteenth century and early twentieth century), followed by a Moldavian nationalism (constructed by the Soviets); the rise of Romanian nationalism under the Soviets; and finally the battle of the two ethnic nationalisms today.

63. Many sociologists and pollsters suspect that there was a lot of interviewer error and bias in the way the questions
in the census were designed. This suspicion was confirmed to me in a private conversation by Doru Petruți, the
director of IMAS polling institute.
Moreover, another factor that must be taken into account is that Romanian government offers citizenship to all
Moldovans who can prove residence or genealogical connection to Moldova prior to World War II. As Romanian
citizenship provides the right to travel to European Union, hundreds of thousands of unemployed Moldovans
choose to obtain the Romanian citizenship and the advantages that come with it. As this might affect the
self-identification of many Moldovans, the degree of its influence must be further studied.
64. The survey with the highest number was conducted in 2005 by a Moldovan polling agency ‘ABC X’.

23

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