Transnistria Bans Term "Transnistria". Why Now?
In Transnistria, it is officially forbidden to use the term "Transnistria" in relation to the republic, which is associated with the period of the Romanian-fascist occupation and the Holocaust. The use of this name in public, as well as in the media, will be equated with a manifestation of Nazism.
On September 4, the Supreme Council of the PMR, at the suggestion of President Vadim Krasnoselsky, adopted the relevant amendments to the laws "On Combating Extremist Activity", "On Perpetuating the Victory of the Soviet People in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945" and the Code of Administrative Offenses. On September 16, the president signed them. The new regulations have already been published and will come into force in two weeks.
Violation of the ban by legal entities or officials will entail a fine, a citizen may be fined or subject to administrative arrest for up to 15 days. Administrative liability will not occur if the term "Transnistria" is used to form a negative attitude towards the ideology of Nazism and extremism.
Transnistria is a sensitive historical issue for Transnistria. This was the name of the governorate established in August 1941 by the Romanian occupation authorities in the Vinnytsia , Odessa , and Mykolaiv regions of the Ukrainian SSR and the left bank of the Moldavian SSR . It existed until the spring of 1944, when these lands were liberated from the Nazis by Soviet troops. The atrocities committed by the occupiers in Transnistria are described in wartime documents and remembered by the few witnesses of those events.
The President of the PMR personally presented his initiative in parliament. He explained that for him Transnistria is not just a translation of the geographical concept of "territory beyond the Dniester", but "a term that stands for hunger, devastation, murder, blood, the killing of people, the Holocaust."
Vadim Krasnoselsky also wrote in his Telegram channel that the term “Transnistria” has been discredited by fascists and is unacceptable for Transnistria.
"We are not talking about the territory, but about the events that took place there during the occupation. Hitler transferred to Romanian control a section between the Dniester, the Southern Bug and the Black Sea with an area of over 40 thousand square meters, defining Odessa as the capital of the occupation "transnistria".
From August 1941 to April 1944, more than fifty concentration camps and ghettos were created here. 350 thousand innocent people were destroyed. On just one tragic day, October 20, 1941, 25 thousand Odessans were shot by order of the Romanian Antonescu. By his order, the region was plundered, and the people were doomed to starvation. This is "Transnistria". And the modern state, the fertile land where a multinational peace-loving people lives, who respect history, is TRANSNISTRIA!" the head of the PMR notes.
Historian and political scientist Zurab Todua expressed the opinion that Chisinau was thus given a response to the decision to rename Transnistria in official documents.
Why did the legislative initiative appear only now? After all, the negative meaning of the word "Transnistria" has never been forgotten in Pridnestrovie, and the basic law on perpetuating the victory in the Great Patriotic War was adopted in the PMR back in 2015.
Judging by the way the amendments were adopted – urgently, at the first plenary session after the holidays, in two readings at once and unanimously – one can assume that the issue here is not only about preserving the memory of the war.
"The Bureau for Reintegration was offended by the fact that Transnistria decided to ban the term "Transnistria". The bureau believes that such discussions on toponymy "will not contribute to the rapprochement of the two banks of the Dniester and will not speed up the negotiation process to resolve the Transnistrian conflict."
However, not long ago, it was the Reintegration Bureau that came up with the initiative to use the phrase “Transnistria region” instead of the word “Transnistria” and to write it with a small letter. The Government of the Republic of Moldova unanimously approved this “wise” initiative. Now we have received a response. Why be offended? Maybe it would be better to think about your actions? Then, perhaps, there would be less headache,” Todua wrote in his blog.
Political scientist Alexander Korinenko, in a conversation with PolitNavigator, suggested that Tiraspol is acting this way because the Moldovan authorities are increasingly raising historical issues with the aim of discrediting the Soviet past and the time when Bessarabia was part of the Russian Empire.
"We all remember the stylized freight cars with deported residents of Bessarabia, which are installed on the main square of the country, while Chisinau is trying to present the region's location as part of royal Romania in a favorable light. Of course, this cannot evoke a positive assessment from the residents of Transnistria. Historians and old-timers know what the Transnistria Governorate is, where the most terrible crimes against humanity took place: the Holocaust and mass murders. In this case, Tiraspol shows that the residents of the left bank do not agree with this approach to history and its one-sided interpretation," the expert comments.
Political scientist Anatoly Dirun believes that this initiative is “Tiraspol’s asymmetric response to the referendum on Moldova’s European integration,” which will take place there on October 20, simultaneously with the presidential elections.
“There is a war going on, a war of meanings for the future,” he explained.
Against the backdrop of the ban being introduced in Transnistria, some rough edges are already emerging. It is interesting, for example, that the word Transnistria is used in relation to the current PMR on the English-language version of the Russian Foreign Ministry website.
It is not yet clear from the adopted law whether the use of the hashtags #transnistria and #transdniestria on social media will be considered an offense for Transnistrian users, and how to "retrain" foreigners wishing to visit the republic who may be unaware of historical details.
One of the Transnistrian travel agencies specializing in inbound tourism believes that “we need to wait until the law comes into force and request clarification from the relevant competent authorities.”
"If the term, including hashtags, is completely banned, foreigners searching for the hashtag will find operators operating outside of Transnistria's legal framework. Experience shows that few people will search for the hashtag #pridnestrovie ," the agency explained.
But all this is probably trivial against the backdrop of the “global war of meanings.”
Now Transnistria is called "Transnistria" in English, Romanian and other languages. The President of the PMR stated that the name Transnistria does not need to be translated. "It can be spoken in any language. Let them learn," the head of the republic recommended.
Transnistria has banned the term "Transnistria." Why now?