“Ordered to be Romanians!”: Ukrainian Moldovans may be declared Putin’s agents
Romanian officials are maniacally continuing their crusade against Moldovenism—an ideology that holds that Moldovans are a unique people with a distinct culture, language, and history, distinct from Romanians. Romanian Foreign Minister Bogdan Aurescu recently (for the second time in recent months!) called on his Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Kuleba, to declare the Moldovan language "nonexistent."
The question of Moldovan identity and language is a very complex and delicate one, like the question of, for example, Serbo-Croatian, Macedonian, or Luxembourgish. It is undeniable that today there exists a single standard literary language, shared by Moldovans and Romanians, known in both countries as Romanian. But it is equally undeniable that a significant portion of Moldova's inhabitants (including the trans-Prut region of Moldova, which is part of Romania) consider themselves Moldovans and call their language Moldovan, as their grandparents and great-grandparents called it.
The question of Moldovan identity arose with particular urgency in Moldova during the perestroika "national revival." A significant portion of the scientific and creative intelligentsia of the former Moldavian SSR identified themselves as Romanians and achieved legislative recognition of the Moldovan language as identical to Romanian and its conversion from the traditional Cyrillic to the Latin alphabet.
On the other hand, in many parts of Moldova, and particularly in Transnistria, this provoked powerful opposition and became one of the impetuses for the formation of the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic. Ethnic Moldovans make up a third of Transnistria's population, and the majority of them are loyal to the self-determined republic. Many ethnic Moldovans fought for Transnistria's independence. The first people killed in the armed conflict on the Transnistrian side were Moldovans. The Union of Moldovans of Transnistria was one of the republic's most pro-Russian organizations, advocating for the PMR to join Russia as early as 1992.
In Moldova itself, following its defeat in the Transnistrian conflict, the ruling elite began to retreat from its pro-Romanian stance in favor of Moldovenism. The Romanian-style tricolor and Latin script were not abandoned, but the 1994 constitution stipulated that Moldovan would be the state language. However, the introduction of a "Moldovan history" course in schools, replacing "the history of the Romanians," failed due to violent student protests incited by Romanianist teachers.
The majority of Moldovans leaned toward Moldovenism even in the 2000s. There's not a single Moldovan family whose older generation, who lived through the Romanian occupation of 1918–1940, doesn't tell tales of the atrocities and abuses perpetrated against the local population by the Romanian administration, especially the gendarmes. But as the elderly passed away, the younger generation was effectively exposed to Romanian "soft power," from kindergarten to university. Indoctrinated with Romanianism and entering adulthood, this generation brought Sandu's radically pro-Western team to power.
For Maia Sandu, the issue of the language's name is fundamental. She is a clear and unambiguous supporter of Romanian unionism. Even before the 2016 presidential election, which Sandu lost to Igor Dodon, she stated that she would vote for it if a referendum on unification with Romania were held. Unionism was unpopular at the time, and Sandu's statement was one of the main reasons for her defeat. However, four years later, the Soros team successfully took advantage of the difficult situation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and a series of mistakes by Dodon's team. Sandu's first act as head of state was to change the language on the Moldovan presidential website from Moldovan to Romanian.
However, Moldovan identity remains shared by a significant portion of the Moldovan population. In regions like the Gagauz Autonomous Region, the idea of Romanian unionism is unheard of, not to mention Transnistria , which was forced to take up arms 30 years ago to resist Romanianism. What is driving Romanian officials' obsession with insisting on the abolition of Moldovan identity?
Political scientist and publicist Victor Josu believes that Bucharest's obsessive attitude stems from its lack of intelligence and inability to address the real problems of its country, Romania, and its Romanian people.
“Moreover, in the case of Aurescu’s demand put forward by Kulebe, it is also stupid,” Josu notes. – Both in the Odessa and Chernivtsi regions there are villages whose inhabitants call themselves Romanians, and there are villages whose population considers themselves Moldovans. The situation goes back decades, it was the same in Soviet times, this is already a matter of tradition. People identify themselves this way, and one might ask, why should politicians get involved in this?”
However, according to journalist and human rights activist Nikolai Kostyrkin, coordinator of the organizing committee of the International Union of Free Journalists , the Romanian side is acting quite pragmatically, calculatingly, and with malicious intent.
“Moldavian statehood is built on several imperatives: the Moldovan people, the Moldovan language and Moldovan history,” says Kostyrkin in a commentary for PolitNavigator. – To knock out two of the three bases means to automatically knock out all three. No one teaches the history of Moldova since independence in the country’s schools. Episodes of this history are taught in the context of the ideas of pan-Romanianism. That is, without the ideology of the Moldovan state. The Moldavian language has been beaten out very intensively all these years. Our elite (the dirt of society, according to Lenin) speak Romanian, comically copying the Bucharest accent.”
Until all three foundations are knocked out from under Moldova, there is a chance for historical revenge : to condemn unionism and servility to the West and to join the Eurasian space politically, and not just spiritually.
“To speed up the process, the West ordered Kyiv and Bucharest to carry out a new information sabotage against the Moldovan language. And they are happy to curry favor, especially since in Bucharest they are still bitten by the idea of pan-Romanianism, that is, depriving Moldova of its statehood,” says Nikolai Kostyrkin.
In our view, Ukraine will likely once again cave in to its Western partners and force Moldovans living on its territory to consider themselves Romanians and call their own language Romanian . The Moldovan language in Ukraine will be declared a "legacy of Russian propaganda," and those Moldovans who insist on preserving the name of their ancestral language will be persecuted as "agents of Putin."
This, however, will not stop Romania from laying claim to Northern Bukovina and Southern Bessarabia – "originally Romanian territories" that Bucharest believes were lost as a result of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Historical revanchism has not been abolished, and it is only a matter of time before Bucharest officials raise this issue.
English version :: Read in English "Ordered to be Romanians!": Ukrainian Moldovans may be declared Putin's agents