The Moldovan linguistic question
Language and identity in a post-Soviet state that is balancingbetween East and West
Master Thesis – Final Version L.M.C. Sengers
MA Literature and Culture: Slavonic September 17, 2014
University of Amsterdam Supervisor: A. J. Drace-Francis
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Contents
Introduction 4
CHAPTER 1: Language and identity policies in Moldova’s recent history 8
1.1 Brief history of Moldova before 1940 8
1.1.1 Bessarabia (1812-1917) 9
1.1.2 Greater Romania and the MASSR (1917-1940) 9
1.2 From an imposed identity too an identity crisis 11
1.2.1 The Soviet Era (1940-1991) 11
1.2.2 Independent Moldova (from 1991) 14
1.3 The significant other: identity versus language and power 17
1.4 Moldovans about their language and identity 19
1.4.1 Ciscel’s study 19
1.4.2 Surveys 20
CHAPTER 2: Present Moldova: demography, language, policies and problems 23
2.1 Demography and language statistics 23
2.1.1 Demography 23
2.1.2 Language 25
2.2 Language legislation, policies and politics 27
2.2.1 Language rights and legislation 27
2.2.2 The official state language: Moldovan or Romanian? 28
2.2.3 Language and education policies 29
2.2.4 Language attitutes in politics 31
2.2.5 Language bill of May 2013 32
2.3 Linguistic problems 33
2.3.1 The Russian language in Moldova 33
2.3.2 Recent incidents 34
2.4 “Moldovan linguist conflict”? 35
CHAPTER 3: The special case of Transnistria 37
3.1 Language laws leading to civil war 38
3.2 Transnistria between and Russia 39
3.2.1 The relation with Russia 40
3.2.2 The relation with Moldova 41
3.3 Problems of language education 42
3.4 The creation of a national Transnistrian identity 46
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Bibliography 50
Attachments 56
Attachment I: English survey and results 56
Attachment II: Russian survey and results 59
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Introduction
The Republic of Moldova is a land-locked country which used to be part of the Soviet Union. The biggest part of the territory lies between two rivers: the Prut River on the western border with Romania and the Nistru River on the eastern border with Ukraine. Moldova has a Romanian-speaking majority and a sizeable urban Russian minority. The country is divided: one could say that there are actually three Moldova’s: the districts of Moldova and the autonomous regions of Gagauzia and Transnistria (also called Pridnestrovie or Dnestr Region), the latter being a small, unrecognized autonomous republic that still operates according to the Soviet model.
Since its independence in 1991, the Republic of Moldova has struggled to maintain an uncertain balance between European aspirations and traditional ties with Eurasian countries. The existence of two breakaway regions has made this balancing act even more difficult. Besides that, the impoverished, largely agricultural Moldovan economy is the poorest in Europe. Also, the Moldovan identity is more contentious and less well-established: many Moldovans consider themselves and their language to be Romanian. In summary, the instability, poverty and identity crisis undermine this independent country that has emerged from totalitarian communism only two decades ago.
After an impasse of over two years, Nicolae Timofti was elected president of Moldova in March 2012. Since May 2013, the Pro-European Coalition has been the ruling coalition. Iurie Leancă (Liberal Democratic Party) is the current Prime Minister. At the moment, his government is eager to integrate into Europe. In June 2014, it signed the Association Agreement with the EU, which means a closer political and economic relation between both
parties. The most important part is the
Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area, which will create more possibilities for trade and economic growth. Also, from April 28th 2014, Moldovans with a biometric passport are able to
travel visa-free to the EU-countries.
The parliamentary elections on November 30, 2014, however, are very important for Moldova’s EU-integration. According to recent polls, the Communist Party is in a winning position: about 42% of the voters would vote for it.1 If the Communists win and a less pro-EU coalition will
be formed, the European path is not so obvious anymore. Besides, the current problems in neighbouring country Ukraine complicate Moldova’s European aspirations. The annexation of the Crimea by Russia and the unrest among the pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine are important in this context: many fear that similar events will happen in the breakaway regions of Transnistria and Gagauzia and that President Putin will focus his attention on these regions after the Crimea-crisis. Especially Transnistria impedes the process of European integration: although
1 Allmoldova.org: If elections were held next Sunday, five parties would enter Parliament (21-05-2014) http://www.allmoldova.com/en/moldova-news/1249058238.html
According to countless stickers in Bucharest, ‘Bessarabia is Romania!’ (photo from own collection)
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Statements like these are easy to spot on walls in Chişinău: “I am Moldovan! I speak the Moldovan
language!”
(Source: Chişinău, Seriously?) the region has all the features of a ‘real’ country (government, currency, flag), it is not recognized by any country in the world. Transnistria itself has already made its choice: on March 18th and April
16th this year, pro-Russian politicians and activists requested the Russian parliament to adjust a
law through which adding their territory to Russia could happen in a legal way.
The past year, I was able to visit this fascinating country: in 2013, while travelling through Russia and Ukraine, I made a side trip to Moldova’s capital Chişinău. On the train from Odessa to Chişinău, I met an old lady travelling on her own back home after vacation and I spoke with her for a while in Russian. Although she was born and raised in Moldova (back then part of the Soviet Union), she never learnt to speak Romanian, but nevertheless did consider herself to be ‘Moldovan’: “Я молдованка”, she firmly said, meaning ‘I am a Moldovan woman’.
In March 2014, during my internship at the Netherlands Embassy to Romania and Moldova in Bucharest, I had the chance to join my colleagues on a diplomatic mission to Chişinău and Tiraspol, the capital of Transnistria. Moldova appeared to me as a country that is difficult to define. What is Moldova exactly? Is it Romanian, is it Russian, is it a mixture between both? Or is it something completely on its own, ‘Moldovan’? What struck me most was the seemingly effortless existence of both the Romanian and Russian language in public areas. While I could hear most people in the streets speaking Romanian, it was no problem to make myself clear in Russian. The case was very different in Tiraspol, where all the signs and banners were in Russian and the sound of Romanian was rarely heard.
These visits stirred up my interest for Moldova but raised many questions at the same time. What is exactly the Moldovan linguistic situation? Is there a ‘linguistic conflict’? If yes: how does this conflict affect the daily life of the inhabitants of the country? What was and is Russia’s role in this small country? Is there a ‘Moldovan’ identity? And, considering the European aspirations, the events in Ukraine and Putin’s recent policies, what do these language and identity questions mean in the present geopolitical context? In this Master thesis, I will try to answer these questions.
This thesis will start with the language and identity policies in Moldova’s recent history. Besides the economic crisis, the national identity crisis (Moldovan, Romanian or Russian?) is one of the main crises in Moldova today. According to some scholars, the identity crisis is even the most important hindrance for democracy.2 The Soviet policy of nation-building will be explained, a concept that was
necessary in the evolution of the Moldovan identity and language, in order to separate the Moldovan identity from the Romanian one. Language and symbols were very important in this policy. Furthermore, Jenkins’s theoretical concepts of similarity versus difference and asymmetrical
power relations are relevant.
2 Loredana M. Simionov, ‘How did language in Moldova lead to an identity crisis instead of establishing an identity?’ (2012), 1.
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In the second chapter, the current situation will be described: the minorities, the language policies and the linguistic problems in Moldova of today. At the end of this chapter, I will discuss whether the linguistic situation could be called a ‘conflict’. A well-known linguistic conflict is the Belgian conlict, studied by Kenneth D. McRae3 among others: in Belgium, the language question began
shortly after the beginning of the country’s existence in 1830, due to the Francization and the subsequent Flemish movement against this development. The linguistic conflict even led to the federalisation of Belgium: in 1963, an official language border was established between the Dutch-speaking northern region Flanders and the French-Dutch-speaking southern part Wallonia.
In the 1950s and 1960s, phenomena like language contact, language dominance and language conflict became more and more explored by linguists. Uriel Weinreich’s Languages in
contact (1953) formed the fundamental basis for studies of multilingual communities. Einar Haugen
introduced his ideas on language planning and the ecology of language in Language conflict and
language planning: the case of modern Norwegian (1966). In the 1980s sociologists, political
scientists (e.g. McRae) and linguists (e.g. Peter Nelde) followed their example. According to Nelde, a language often develops into a symbol of social conflict in minority settings, even when it is not the direct cause of the conflict. In this way, language conflicts could be characterised as redirected social conflicts which sometimes appear as open conflicts, but in other cases are considered as subcutaneous conflicts that could evolve into manifest conflicts.4
The above mentioned scholars examined how language conflicts can be the result of political, economic or socio-cultural power structures. However, none of the works I consulted (except for perhaps Nelde, although he focuses on ‘redirected social conflict’) provides one clear definition of a language conflict. McRae uses the term ‘social tension’ but does not define it.5 In this
thesis, I perceive the term ‘linguistic conflict’ as a social or political conflict about the language(s) that should be used in a particular country or situation. A language conflict could influence a people’s culture, identity and economic prospects, and could have consequences for the geopolitical situation of a country.
In the third and last chapter, special attention will be given to the autonoumous region of Transnistria, which has a peculiar status within the Republic of Moldova. The discrimination of Romanian-language schools in this region will be elaborately discussed.
In order to write this thesis, I made use of a variety of sources. In the first place, several works and articles, of which those by Matthew H. Ciscel, Charles King and Wim van Meurs were the most important, provided the basic background of the current Moldovan situation. These scholars have devoted years to their detailed works about language and identity in Moldova. In my thesis, I attempt to build further upon these works: Van Meurs’ The Bessarabian Question in Communist
Historiography was published in 1994 and focuses on nationalist and communist politics during
Soviet times; The Moldovans by King appeared in 1999, exposes the problems of identity politics and cultural change that the country has endured; and Ciscel’s cross-discipline The language of the
Moldovans (2007) explores who the Moldovans are from the perspective of debates about the
languages spoken by this people. In comparison to what has already been written about this topic,
3 Kenneth D. Mc Rae, Conflict and Compromise in Multilingual Societies: Belgium, 1986.
4 Peter H. Nelde, Sprachkontakt und Sprachkonflikt – Languages in contact and conflict – Langues en contact et en conflit – Taalcontact en taalconflict (1980).
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my own work proposes to make a complete and up-to-date outline of the current Moldovan situation. In addition, I included a separate chapter about Transnistria containing relevant recent developments in the linguistic area.
In order to write this updated work about language and identity in Moldova, looking through Moldovan newspaper websites every day for all kinds of linguistic and political news was inevitable. Besides, I had the chance to speak with a couple of specialized experts about the sociolinguistic situation in Moldova nowadays, e.g. Irina Condrea, sociolinguist at the Moldovan State University in Chişinău. Lastly, I spread a small survey about language and identity among inhabitants of Moldova through social media websites Facebook and VKontakte, to get a global impression of their opinions. All these sources were very helpful in creating a complete image of the Moldovan linguistic situation and to write the conclusion.
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CHAPTER 1 – Language and identity policies in Moldova’s recent history
Language plays an important role in uniting or dividing ethnic groups and empires. The Moldovan language has played a major role in Moldova as an identity marker. The best example of the uncertainty about the Moldovan identity is the lack of agreement even about the name of the state language, which is referred to as ‘Romanian’ or ‘Moldovan’. The state language also lacks the status and full acceptance as the only official language of Moldova. This is an important factor behind the Moldovan linguistic divide. Furthermore, Russian, dominant during the Soviet era, enjoys a continuing prestige. However, its speakers do feel threatened by the loss of the official status in 1989. The majority of the Moldovan population is confused and disappointed trying to identify themselves with a controversial ‘Moldovan’ identity.6The Moldovan national identity crisis is partially based on an uncertain link to a larger neighbour, which destabilizes the country: Moldova is historically positioned between Romania and Russia, which have both laid claims on the country’s territory. Besides external actors, internally there are three directions in which the Moldovan political elites traditionally move. The ultimate goal of the pan-Romanianists is the reunification of Moldova with Romania on a cultural level, not necessarily politically. The pro-Russianists promote the Russian language and culture and reject closer ties to Romania, because these threaten the use of the Russian language. The supporters of Moldovanism are more radical and promote a nationalistic ideology, in which the term ‘Romanian’ is completely rejected. They wish to build up an independent Moldovan republic within the Commonwealth of Independent States.7
This chapter begins with a short overview of Moldova’s history before 1940, in order to understand the origins and evolution of Moldovan identity. Afterwards, the making of the Moldovan identity by the Soviet policy of nation-building since 1940 will be discussed. Jenkins’s theoretical concepts of similarity versus difference and asymmetrical power relations are important in this respect. Furthermore, the independent period after 1991 is analysed. At the end of this chapter, I will discuss Ciscel’s extensive study of the Moldovan identity and my own survey questions about language and identity in Moldova.
1.1 Brief history of Moldova before 1940
From 1359 onwards, the first independent Moldovan kingdom appeared under Bogdan I (The Founder) between the Nistru River and the Danube Delta. During the fifteenth century, a modest golden age, the kingdom flourished. However, in 1513 the Ottoman Turks overran the kingdom, which led to two centuries of subjugation as a semi-independent vassal state. This principality remains the source of the Moldovan identity ideology as being separate from the modern Romanian one. Occasional insurrections against the Ottomans, who continued to occupy the region until the 18th century, maintained and increased the local identity in this way.8
6 Charles King, The Moldovans: Romania, Russia, and the politics of culture (1999), 2. 7 King, ‘Moldovan identity and the politics of Pan-Romanianism’ (1994), 345-346. 8 King, The Moldovans (1999), 16-18.
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1.1.1 Bessarabia (1812-1917)After decades of being alternately under Ottoman and Russian control, Moldova was divided into two parts in 1812: the Prut River formed the border between these. Until 1917, the eastern half was annexed by the Russian Empire and renamed Bessarabia.9 The Russian integration was
decisive in the linguistic and national identity of the region. After 1829 the czar increasingly established a policy of Russification in Bessarabia: Russians were forced to migrate there, a separate Moldovan Orthodox church was established and the education was russified. The province was isolated from the other half of historical Moldova and also quite isolated from the Russian capital Saint-Petersburg.10 According to the Russian census of 1897, Bessarabia had become an
ethnically and linguistically diverse province, e.g. of the two million people living in the region, only about 50% were ethnically Moldovan, 20% were Ukrainian, 12% Jewish, 8% Russian and there were significant numbers of Bulgarians, Germans and Gagauz. The large majority of the population was still illiterate and rural, with only 15% urbanization. Only 14% of the urban population was ethnically Moldovan: the cities were largely Jewish and Russian, while in the countryside mainly Moldovans and Ukrainians lived. There is a similarity of ethnicity counts and language counts in the census, so most ethnic groups kept their ethnic languages.11 After the Russian Revolution of 1905,
Romanian nationalists from the kingdom immigrated to Bessarabia and assisted in the founding of Romanian language newspapers and schools. According to these nationalists, the Moldovans of Bessarabia still needed to be convinced about the new Romanian identity.
1.1.2 Greater Romania and the MASSR (1917-1940)
The National Council of the Moldovan Democratic Republic was established by the Bessarabians after the Russian Revolution of 1917. However, only one year later, Romania and Bessarabia were unified (unirea, ‘unification’). As a
consequence eastern Bessarabia was intensely Romanianised during the Interbellum. The young Soviet Union refused to recognize the newly formed Greater Romania. In 1924 the USSR established the Moldovan Autonoumous Socialist Soviet Republic (MASSR) on Ukrainian territory, left of the eastern border of Bessarabia. The MASSR roughly contained the current Transnistrian region and an adjacent area around the city of Balta, which is in Ukraine nowadays. The republic became the staging
9 The region was named ‘Bessarabia’ after the Wallachian Basarab dynasty who allegedly ruled over the southern part of the Budzhak-region in the 14th century.
10 King, The Moldovans,19, 23, 35.
11 Первая всеобщая перепись населения Российской Империи 1897 г. Распределение населения по родному языку и регионам (First General Russian Empire Census of 1897. Population breakdown by mother tongue and regions): http://demoscope.ru/weekly/ssp/rus_lan_97.php
The Moldavian Autonomous Socialist Soviet Republic, east of Bessarabia and the Nistru (Source: Wikipedia)
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ground for the distribution of Soviet propaganda into Romanian Bessarabia and had to provide a political buffer against future Romanian influence among the Moldovans.12 Throughout the
Interbellum, the MASSR became the site of the early Soviet’s intensive cultural and indigenization programs, including the development of a separate Moldovan history and language. The Soviet nation-builders embraced the concepts of language-building (языковое cтроительство, ‘yazykovoe stroitel’stvo’): although the area of the MASSR was ethnically Ukrainian for the major part, the Moldovan minority became the focus of intensive language planning. Under Stalin, a standardized, separate Moldovan language was developed which was based on the variety of the Romanian language spoken by Moldovan peasants in the MASSR. It had to be written in the Cyrillic script. However, this standard language failed to gain support and was replaced by a new Moldovan in 1932, which was closer to standard Romanian and was even written in the Latin alphabet. In 1938 Soviet policy reverted to the Cyrillic based version of Moldovan.13
The Soviet authorities in the MASSR were winning the war over the identity of the Bessarabians through propaganda related to minority rights and economic reforms. The irredentism of the Soviets continued to influence the attitudes of even the Romanians in Bessarabia, with regard to the option of a Romanian identity. According to the 1939 Soviet census, the MASSR was only 28.5% Moldovans. Ukrainians made up 50%, Russians 10% and Jews 6%. Since the population was 80% rural, with little access to power or education, ethnic groups tended to maintain their separate languages. The capital city of Tiraspol was, like the cities of Bessarabia, primarily home to Russians and Jews. The majority of Bessarabian Romanians also lived in rural areas: as such, Bessarabia was demographically more similar to the MASSR than to the highly urbanized and relatively more ethnically homogenous Romanian nation.14
Due to the unification, the indigenous people of Bessarabia had the chance to either adopt the previously inaccessible Romanian identity or to reinforce their historical Moldovan character through the Soviet propaganda in the MASSR.15 From the East, the Soviets were developing a
Soviet-based Moldovan identity and a standard language based on the regional dialect in Transnistria. From the west, the Romanian government was trying to convince rural eastern Moldovans to adopt a Romanian identity and the Bucharest-based standard of the language. For the majority of the Bessarabian population, however, the Romanianization reforms lacked: in subjects other than Romanian language and history, education remained under-funded. Besides, the Romanian government had an affable attitude towards the ‘simple’ Moldovans, who were regarded as sympathising with Bolshevism. In sum, the Bessarabian population did not embrace the Romanian identity and national awareness. The two decades of the Kingdom of Greater Romania, however, formed the base of the competing notions of national identity in Moldova today, including competing notions of the standard language.16
12 King, ‘The ambivalence of authenticity, or how the Moldovan language was made’ (1999), 124. 13 Wim van Meurs, The Bessarabian Question in Communist Historiography (1994), 128-131. 14 Ciscel, The language of the Moldovans, 37-39.
15 Van Meurs, 76.
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1.2 From an imposed identity to an identity crisis
Thus, before 1940 the nationality and identity of the Moldovans was already a matter of contention. The Interbellum decades form the base for the competing notions of national identity in present Moldova. The Second World War ended these rivalling approaches. In 1940, together with Northern Bukovina, Bessarabia was incorporated into the Soviet Union.
1.2.1 The Soviet Era (1940-1991)
At the end of the Second World War, Eastern Moldova became part of the Soviet Union. In order to integrate the most ethnically homogenous Moldovan parts of Bessarabia and the MASSR into one Soviet republic, the central part of eastern Moldova was united with the western part of the MASSR (roughly equivalent to present-day Transnistria) to form the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (MSSR). Using census data from 1939, Stalin handed much of the MASSR, which had a sizeable Ukrainian population, over to Ukraine, leaving Moldova landlocked and tied to a thin strip of Transnistrian territory that never had been part of either Romania or historical Moldova. The result was a somewhat more ethnically homogenous population, with 2/3 rather than a half of the people claiming an ethnic Moldovan identity in 1959.17
To create this new Moldovan Republic, a Moldovan identity which separated Moldova and Romania was of essential importance, in order to serve the Soviet political goals.18 Since the
national languages of the Soviet republics were seen as the most important ethnic markers and were officially recognised in the Soviet Union, the Moldovan language and identity were set up according to the Soviet identity-building, which had already been put into practice in the MASSR in the 1920s and 1930s, together with language- and culture-building programmes. In order to create a separate Moldovan nation and minimize influences from the West, the authorities took several steps to underline the difference between Moldovans and Romanians: a separate Moldovan language (even though it was the same Romanian as in Romania), identity and history were promoted. The use of the term ‘Romanian’ was completely prohibited and was permanently changed to ‘Moldovan’ together with the imposition of the Cyrillic alphabet over the Romanian language and the addition of a large amount of Russian borrowings. The separation between Moldova and Romania was further intentionally enhanced by the emphasis on Russian and Ukrainian rather than Moldovan/Romanian as the administration languages and a strict separation of political and cultural ties between both countries.19 In sum, the authorities presented a false
ethno-linguistic divide between Romanians and Moldovans.20
Although local languages like Moldovan were officially promoted in policy, in practice, Russian was much more important than the indigenous languages. Russian was the prestigious language of the revolutionaries, the urban elite and the Soviet man. Russian was the only obligatory subject in all schools and the only language of higher education, and the dominant language in the cities and the media. Members of smaller minorities like the Bulgarians and Gagauz and members of mixed families naturally moved towards Russian. Moldovan, on the other hand,
17 Ciscel, The language of the Moldovans, 39-41 18 Simionov, 1.
19 King, ‘The ambivalence of authenticity’, 119-120. 20 Simionov, 2.
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was only good enough in the villages and at home. Moldovan television was broadcasted for just four hours a day. Only a third of the books and journals published in Soviet Moldova were in the Moldovan language. In 1975, the circulation of Russian language newspapers even exceeded the spread of Moldovan papers.21 The result was a mass bilingualism among the ethnic
Romanian-speaking majority.22
The pan-Romanian supporters, who were called the enemies of the people because of their ‘bourgeois nationalism’, were suppressed. The separate Moldovan identity and acceptance of Russian dominance were intensified by memories of Romanian corruption and mismanagement before and during the Second World War. The comparatively worse economic lot of the Moldovans’ cousins across the border in Communist Romania was heavily underlined as well.23 So in sum,
during the Soviet occupation, Moldovans were isolated from their former Romanian origin identity. Several scholars have discussed the concept of nation-building. According to philosopher Norman Wayne, nation-building is the process of creating, spreading or shaping a national identity by using the power of the state.24 The Soviet project of nation-building has shaped the Moldovan
identity, and especially the language, which was regarded Romanian before the Soviet era. For the nation-builders, language was of great importance in strengthening and defining a Moldovan nation: language represents the politically most legitimate means to define groups in Europe. The Moldovan language had to be different from Romanian, particularly considering the activity of the pan-Romanian intellectuality groups that promoted cultural and political ties to the ‘motherland’ Romania.25
Therefore, language is seen as a unifying force and, besides history and culture, an important identity marker. For many European countries, the feature ‘distinct language’ is essential for claiming nationhood. Nations are the primary indicators of a collective identity. The lack of the ‘language’ feature would make the legitimacy of a nation doubtful. Groups that are distinguished only on the basis of a distinct language are often treated as ‘real’ ethnic groups.26 Furthermore,
anthropologist Benedict Anderson states that a nation represents an imagined political community. Since identities are also ‘imagined’, they are the product of conscious nation-building by the state. Therefore, linguists can create national and standardised languages out of miscellaneous speech patterns of particular groups, ethnographers formalise the limits of membership in an ethnic population, historians make national histories and heroes, and state-sponsored educational systems produce all these nationhood accessories to the people.27
Nation-builders create imagined languages, traditions and communities with the aim to make a standard national identity and culture. The Soviet project followed this model in the construction of occupied nations. Several symbols, historical figures or traditions and especially language were used: ‘Moldovan’ was guaranteed a special status. The use of a Cyrillic alphabet was imposed, the use of the name ‘Moldovan language’ was promoted and the use of ‘Romanian’ for the Moldovan language was forbidden. The idea that Moldovans and Romanians, far from being part of
21 King, The Moldovans, 75-76.
22 Vasile Dumbrava, Sprachkonflikt und Sprachbewusstsein in der Republik Moldova (Language conflict and language awareness in the Republic of Moldova, 2004.
23 Ciscel, 15-16.
24 Norman Wayne, Negotiating nationalism: nation-building, federalism, and secession in the multinational state (2006), 26.
25 Simionov, 6.
26 Jan Blommaert, The role of language in European nationalist ideologies (1998), 191-192.
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a single pan-Romanian nation, actually formed two completely separate ethnic groups who spoke different Romance languages. The linguistic criteria were seen as the foundation of a national identity for the Soviet model. As long as the notion of a Moldovan separate language could be kept, the idea of a non-Romanian Moldovan nation remained a possible prospect.28
This anti-Romanian Soviet policy left its trace on the Moldovan identity. Although the Soviet model recognised different nations, the denial of language, culture and political rights was promoted.29 Because the speakers of Russian were privileged, the Soviet oppression resulted not
only in the loss of proficiency in local languages, but also in changes in language attitudes. Since the Russian-speaking population in Soviet Moldova were privileged and had access to better jobs, schools and social services, the Romanian speaking population was socially excluded: in this way, this group began to develop a kind of an inferiority complex. Being continuously discriminated for their origins or language use, the young generations studied Russian or identified themselves more with Russia than with their own culture.30
In the 1980s, the Moldovan identity and language awareness became stronger. The inhabitants of the MSSR had been isolated from any contact with their Romanian neighbours for several decades. The Moldovan identity consciousness increased, being in contact with the Russian language, culture and identity. This strengthening of a Moldovan identity was possible within the interplay of both cultures, especially since the Russian one represented the significant other. The groupness awareness of Moldovans had grown. In this context, the Moldovan/Romanian language was the main identity marker. Also, the social exclusion and discrimination that the Romanian population faced during this period is another factor of consolidating groupness.31
Despite the oppression and actions that were taken against the close relations between Romania and Moldova, several events made the success of the Soviet nation building in Moldova dubious before the fall of the Soviet Union. During the 1980s, the European Soviet capitals celebrated the resurgence of their native cultures and identities. Ethnicity and nationalism became central issues in especially the Baltic capitals. Before this decade, many scholars, basing their theories on the Soviet model, stated that nations can be invented and that ethnic groups are of less significance. The course taken by the events in the 1980s and 1990s, however, more and more emphasized a different view.32 At the end of the 1980s, informal organizations were
established by Romanian intellectuals in order to fight down the political power of the Communists.
After a period of mass demonstrations, organized by the pro-Romanian Popular Front, the Moldovan Supreme Soviet adopted a new legislation on August 31, 1989. These three laws (together called ‘the Language Law’) declared the official language status of Romanian, the return to the Latin script and a Romanian-Moldovan identity of the republic. This day is still an important national holiday in Moldova: Limba Noastra (‘Our Language’). These laws represented the first step of Moldova’s way out of the Soviet Union.33
The Communists, however, only accepted the Latin script. They kept on claiming that Moldovan was distinct from Romanian and stressing the policies of Russian-Moldovan bilingualism. The Popular Front, on the other hand, increasingly pushed for more linguistic reforms and a move
28 King, ‘Moldovan identity and the politics of Pan-Romanianism’, 348-349. 29 Blommaert, 196.
30 Simionov, 6-7. 31 Ibidem.
32 Ben Fowkes, Ethnicity and ethnic conflict in the post-Communist world (2002), VII. 33 King, ‘Moldovan identity and the politics of Pan-Romanianism’, 350.
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towards Romania. During the first years of the 1990s, linguistic priorities have always been in the background of political conflicts. While the bilingualism policy had many proponents among the older population, the younger intellectual generation was less Soviet and desired to revive the Romanian identity, which had been repressed for over fifty years. Russified minorities like the Gagauz and the Bulgarians and especially the Slavic leaders of Transnistria rejected the developments of Romanianization. Also the Russians and Russian-speaking minorities lost their linguistic prestige after the Language Law. And when the Soviet Union collapsed, they lost their identity as well. Due to these factors, Soviet nostalgia and extreme Russian nationalism were born among the Russian-speaking minorities in Moldova and other new republics. Anti-Romanian, pro-Russian political organisations like Edinstvo soon challenged the Romanian nationalists of the Popular Front. The prominence of these movements in the public discourse of 1990 and 1991 eventually resulted in a brief civil war in 1992. Despite the Language Law, the Republic of Moldova inherited upon independence a linguistic state in which the Russian language of the small, urban minority dominated public, political and economic life. The majority language on the other hand was stigmatized and wrapped in, according to many speakers, a ‘false’ Moldovan identity.34
1.2.2 Independent Moldova (from 1991)
The huge shifts in status of competing national and linguistic identities (which had begun long before 1991) were one of the causes of the total collapse of the USSR, besides the stagnating economy, decentralization and Gorbachev’s policies of perestroika and glasnost. The independent Republic of Moldova was established. In the Soviet Union, nationality was a unitary fact of record in one’s passport, although the term was more used to represent ethnicity than citizenship. With independence, the character of Moldova changed. This period represents an intense set of events, which are relevant for understanding the Moldovan identity controversy. The breakup of the Soviet Union was in line with the political-territorial structure that already existed: the Union republics became independent states. All former Soviet republics needed to create a post-Soviet state and to harmonize two elements: civic identities, based on citizenship, and ethnic identities, based on culture, religion, language and common ancestry.35
Two stages were important in this process: the creation of an overarching identity for the multiple groups in the state and the enabling of these groups to rediscover their own formerly repressed languages, cultures and religions. It would result in a combination of civic and ethnic identities which had to replace the vacuum left by the fall of the Soviet Union.36 However, this
process was not evident: the post-Soviet world barely had a set of civic rudiments that could become essential parts of a new form of statehood. The minorities and elites of the former Soviet states had gotten used to identifying themselves as members of different nations, and in this way they also conceived the state in ethno-cultural instead of civic terms.37 Furthermore, especially in
Moldova, the creation of a post-Soviet identity proved to be difficult. In the process of
34 Ciscel, 18.
35 Vera Tolz, ‘Forging the nation: national identity and nation-building in post-communist Russia’ (1998), 993. 36 Federica Prina, ‘Linguistic justice, Soviet legacies and post-Soviet Realpolitik’ (2013), 7.
37 Rogers Brubaker, ‘Nationhood and the National Question in the Soviet Union and post-Soviet Eurasia: An Institutionalist Account’ (1994), 69.
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Sovietisation, the peoples of new independent states looked for elements of their pre-Soviet past: in Moldova, the pre-Soviet past was inevitably linked to Romania.38
However, the Soviet downfall and independence of Moldova in 1991 did not lead to harmony, but represented the beginning of an identity crisis for the Moldovan people. Before 1991, the domination of the Russian language was bigger in the Moldovan Socialist Soviet Republic than in most other Soviet States: especially in the Baltic Republics, nationalistic feelings were far more present than in Moldova. The revived nationalism made the Baltic people forcefully claim their national culture and languages. After the Soviet oppression, these people felt deprived of their own language and culture and were anxious, angry and frustrated.39 Contrary to the Baltic States,
where the Russian language soon lost its domination, nationalistic movements were less widespread in Moldova shortly after the Soviet collapse. The three main previously mentioned groups, which were already active in the late 1980s, continued to dominate Moldovan politics: the pro-Russia group, the pro-Moldovanism group and the pan-Romanianists.
The activities of the pan-Romanian intelligentsia were very important for the first years of the independent Moldovan Republic. This movement was very enthusiastic about a union with the Romanian ‘motherland’ and rejected the existence of a separate Moldovan nation. The pan-Romanianists wanted to adopt the flag, the national anthem and language of their neighbouring country.40 However, these activities marginalized Russian-speakers and stimulated animosity
between the two main language groups. Even though the pan-Romanianists were very active in spreading their ideals, the people of Moldova did not seem to be very open to these. The most important reasons for this were the pressures of former occupier Russia and the increasing number of people who identified themselves as ‘Moldovan’: they did not quite feel Romanian and did not want to reunite with their neighbouring country. Also, factors like Romanian mismanagement, economics and large, urban minorities weakened the adoption of the Romanian identity. The Soviet policy of modernizing the historical Moldovan identity turned out to be only partially successful, since it left the Moldovan and Romanian identities apparently irreconcilable strangers upon national independence. Gradually, the situation changed as the ties between Moldova and Romania were intensified, which created the identity crisis: Romanian-speaking Moldovans do not appear to feel secure with their identity, hovering between Moldovanism and Romanism.41
These pan-Romanian sentiments were seen as threatening and radical by minority inhabitants of Moldova and especially of Transnistria, where unification with Romania was feared. Meanwhile, the Russian minority also experienced uncertainty about their identity. Before the perestroika, a person of ethnic Russian origin could easily feel at home in Moldova and even identify himself as Moldovan. Suddenly a minority in Moldova after being the dominant group in the Soviet Union, ethnic Russians have been left to figure out new identity for themselves: as the Romanian Moldovans began to press for independence and greater ethnic differentiation, the ethnic Russians would decide that their Russian character was at danger in the new setting. Eventually, many ethnic Russians would feel exclusion that suddenly many ethnic Russians in Moldova would no longer feel at home and wouldn’t identify themselves as Moldovan.42
38 Prina, 7-8.
39 King, ‘Moldovan identity and the politics of Pan-Romanianism’, 350. 40 King, The Moldovans, 3.
41 Prina, 18-21. 42 Ciscel, 51.
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The aftermath of the civil war in Transnistria saw the marginalization of the pro-Romanian Popular Front in the first fully democratic elections of 1994 and the reversal of the identity component of the Language Law in the Constitution of Moldova.43 The same year, the state language officially
became Moldovan again in the first Moldovan Constitution. The Constitution abandoned the Romanian nationalism of the Popular Front and is often seen as one of the most generous policy concessions for minorities in any European nation-state. The next years, the struggle about national and linguistic identity was less extreme, since the focus was more on national consolidation and economic reform than on these issues. For instance, protests took place in Chişinău in 1995 and 1998, in which students demanded that the Romanian historical and linguistic identity would be politically recognised.44
During the terms of Moldova’s first presidents Mircea Snegur and Petru Lucinschi (1991-2001), it became common to entirely avoid the identity crisis by calling the official language limba
de stat or limba noastra. The Communist Party (the ruling party between 2000 and 2008) practiced
different propagandistic means in order to secure that the Moldovan nation was sure of its language and identity. In 2003 for instance, a Moldovan-Romanian dictionary was published by Vasile Stati with the intention to supply evidence that Moldovan is a separate language and should not be mistaken for Romanian. The provocation of Adrian Năstase, the Prime Minister of Romania at that time, was probably the main incentive for creating this dictionary: Năstase stated that he would keep calling Moldova’s language ‘Romanian’ unless he saw a dictionary that proved otherwise. In reality though, this dictionary only confirmed that Moldovan is theoretically the same language as Romanian instead of portraying it as a language in its own right.45
In the 2001 early elections, the revived Communist Party won the majority in parliament and its leader Vladimir Voronin subsequently became president. The communists again proposed laws that would make the Russian language an official state language, alongside Moldovan, which was resisted by the opposition. This announcements led to already strained relations with Romania and again to a conflict over the linguistic identity and the role of Russian in Moldova. The pro-Russian cultural and economic policies of the communist government caused considerable protest from pro-Romanian groups. Several months of mass anti-Communist demonstrations, organised by the Christian Democrats and Romanian nationalists, only stopped when the proposed laws were withdrawn.46 Voronin was re-elected in 2005 and the parliamentary elections in the same year
resulted in a second win for the Communists. They continued to maintain their claim on the uniqueness of the Moldovan language and to discourage the use of the term ‘Romanian’.47
Since 2009, the emphasis was put more on the promotion of the state language, usually referred to as ‘Romanian’ instead of ‘Moldovan’. While the Communists tended to refer to the state language as ‘Moldovan’, nationalists and unionists (those who are in favour of unification with Romania) have referred to it as ‘Romanian’. The external pressures from both Russia and Romania increased. This tense situation led to several demonstrations and even ethnic conflicts. The streets of Chişinău were filled with thousands of protestants, mainly students who were against the victory of the governing Communist Party at the country’s general elections. The violence rapidly sparked
43 Ciscel, The language of the Moldovans, 20. 44 Ibid., 17.
45 The Permanent Committee on Geographical Names: ‘Moldovan: an identity but not a language’ (2005), 1. 46 Ciscel, 45.
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and the students bore the national flag of Romania, acclaiming ‘Bessarabia Romanian land’ or ‘Romanian people, Romanian language’.48
1.3 The significant other: identity versus language and power
According to sociologist Jenkins’ theory of similarity versus difference, the Moldovan identity became quite strong during the Soviet occupation.49 This could happen in the context of the
interaction between Moldovans and Russians, while Russia was the significant other. Due to the interaction between these ethnic groups, the Moldovan identity became stronger. Moldova did and does not have a unique linguistic identity that can differentiate it from other nation-states (it is the only post-Soviet republic that does not have its own titular language). The Moldovan language played the most decisive double role in distinguishing this difference of culture and identity and was a clear identity and differentiation marker.50 After 1991, Moldova came out of its Soviet
isolation and Romania became the significant other. Instead of finding differences, the pro-Romanian Moldovans found similarities with their cousin-neighbours at the other side of the Prut River. As a paradox, the direct and most determining marker of this similarity was the language. However, the inter-ethnic interaction between the Moldovan identity and the identity of the new significant other did not have the same effect as before 1991. Due to the similarity between the Romanian identity, usually seen as the source identity of Moldovans, and the Moldovan one, the well-established Moldovan identity became a mixture and eventually led to frustration among the Moldovans. While language played the role of an identity marker during the Soviet era, it created confusion after 1991 and eventually an identity crisis.51
Another aspect of Jenkins’ theory is the asymmetrical power relations: when a group is continuously offered and induced a certain identity, in the end that group will accept that specific identity as its own. This theory implies the existence of an asymmetry of powers and domination and is perfectly suitable to explain the complex of inferiority that Moldova presents in general, whether in contact with the Russian culture or with the Romanian one. This inferiority complex is one of the important factors that led to the current identity crisis and it mainly concerns the use of the Moldovan/Romanian language. The ‘Moldovan’ language was born in order to offer legitimacy to the newly constructed Moldovan identity. Through interaction with a significant other, the Moldovan identity and cultural awareness acted quite differently, depending on the group it interacted with.52
So, language and identity are inextricably linked to each other. The native language often influences the choice of national identity. Both are based on ideologies that are connected to objective economic needs, attitudes of communities and overlapping distinction labels. The special role of the first language is established in the emotional dependence of young children, which develops into a relatively local independence as the child matures and becomes social in more areas. The identity of the native language is restrained by the ideologies that express peer
48 Prina, 4.
49 Richard Jenkins, Rethinking ethnicity (1997), 168. 50 Simionov, 3.
51 Jenkins, 169. 52 Ibidem.
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attitudes, but it also varies at the individual level, based on the individual identity choices.53
Particularly noticeable is the role of language in the identities to which the Moldovans have access. Language has played an important role in post-Soviet political debates and in the symbolic priorities of individual Moldovans. At the core of these language issues is the emerging linguistic nationalism among both majority and minority ethnic groups. For example, while making claims of a separate Moldovan linguistic identity, anti-Romanian politicians generally use a literary, high-prestige variety of Romanian instead of the low-high-prestige, rural version of the language. This mixed message has accompanied the emergence of an identity crisis among the indigenous Moldovan population.54
Language also plays a central symbolic role in the determination of social identity and in processes of multilingual use and acquisition. For any individual or group, the native language is the inevitable initial state of every linguistic practice. Categories of social identity are complex and dynamic: ethno-national identities not necessarily correspond to language identities. Social identity is related to groups and effects membership choices and social practices in a dynamic way, whether consciously or not. Individuals, on the other hand, can have multiple memberships, based on the social contexts in which they exist: ethnic, political, professional, and familial. The emergence of a strong Moldovan identity based on multi-ethnicity and multilingualism has been hindered by economic crises and the competition between political elites. Both have furthered the continuation of conflicts in national identity through simplistic nationalism.55 A question that often
recurs is whether individual politicians have a true desire to resolve language divisions, or if they use language issues for their political aims. Several conflicting factors may control the discourse around language. For some, this discourse is linked to feelings of justice and respect. For others, politics also come into the comparison. There are specific challenges which are posed by differing perceptions and political interests. Due to the poor economic conditions, less resource is available to implement language policies, including the teaching of the state language. The identity labels complicate the development of a unitary, effective language policy. Administrative measures with regard to language and identity are unlikely to succeed, unless there is a careful consideration of the socio-political context, including on matters which relate to identity and cultural connections.56
According to sociolinguist Matthew Ciscel, the current identity crisis in Moldova is the result of two principal forms of opportunism. The first is practiced by the elites who lead the competing identity groups for national importance and control. The appeal to most Moldovans for a national identity based on language and culture is used by elites, who install themselves as experts on the authenticity of the identity groups they represent. In this way, the utilization of language and culture by elites has made the political move with regard to national identity possible. The leaders of the nationalist movement consciously use emotion and ideologies of Romanian national pride to preach for their political agenda. The Communists rely on the ideology of a separate Moldovan language and culture, an identity closely bound up in a need for the assumedly superior Russian identity as a protector and mentor. In this way, elites take advantage of the linguistic and cultural uncertainty of the majority population. The moderate poor Moldovan will adopt whichever identity
53 Ciscel, 59. 54 Ibid., 48, 142. 55 Ibid., 8, 57. 56 Prina, 19.
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is most advantageous at any given moment. The Romanian-Russian bilingualism, which is common among ethnic Romanians in Moldova, facilitates these shifts.57
1.4 Moldovans about their language and identity
1.4.1 Ciscel’s study
Between 1999 and 2003, Matthew Ciscel has done extensive research about the attitudes of the Moldovan population toward language and identity in their country. Besides spreading questionnaires, Ciscel made use of the matched guise technique, a method widely used by sociolinguists to investigate language attitudes. This method involves experimental candidates listening to apparently different speakers who represent guises in two or more languages and evaluating those speakers for impressions or their personality characteristics. Without the knowledge of the informant (the listener of guises), the speaker is actually a bilingual or polyglot and the reactions provoked by each of his/her linguistic guises are compared as actual speech of an individual, and not as individual’s guises.58
The results of Ciscel’s research suggest a complex interaction among attitudes, identities and linguistic practices. About two-thirds of the questionnaire respondents chose the Moldovan identity. It appeared that most of the people who filled out Moldovan as their native tongue, also said to have the Moldovan identity. On the other hand, those who chose a Moldovan national identity often had the Russian language as native tongue. This reflects the role of Russian as the primary language of inter-ethnic communication. Furthermore, the results of Ciscel’s survey indicate a large correlation between the native language identity group and broader social identity group options. A second data pattern reveals the connection between ethno-linguistic vitality, as represented by each language’s status in the social hierarchy, and the relative economic status of the language’s speakers.59
Ciscel’s research demonstrates the slowness in matters related to linguistic and cultural identity and the continuous, destabilizing existence of two dominant cultures on the European continent: the West, represented by the European Union, and the East, represented by Russia. In Moldova, this split is partly caused by the persisting role of outside forces in the country. Furthermore, the simple term ‘Moldovan’ is not suitable enough to represent the multiple and interrelated identities that contribute to the development of a more all-embracing social identity association. An individual could see himself as Moldovan, but also as a Russian-speaking Moldovan of Gagauz ethnic origin: self-reported national identity categories do not necessarily reflect the complexity of multiple social identity categories that are available to the individual.60
From his data, Ciscel observed that individual actors have a great deal of freedom to oppose or reproduce social identity categories that are created by elites. The role of both the native tongue and complex social identity categories in the second language practices were considerable. Individual second language practices both challenge and reproduce important social identity
57 Ciscel, 73.
58 Anatol Stefanowitsch: ‘The matched guise technique: Empirical methods in linguistics’, Social Perspectives, 2005.
59 Ciscel, 85. 60 Ibid., 87.
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categories.61 Although language identity is ultimately a political issue, the choice of a Moldovan
identity makes little sense linguistically and provides little advantage as regards status in the face of standard Russian. The only apparent advantage in choosing a Moldovan identity lies in the political calls for reunification with Romania, which is extremely unlikely at this point, no matter what the state language is called.62
1.4.2 Surveys
What do Moldovans themselves think about language and identity in their country? In order to answer this question, I spread a survey through social media websites Facebook and VKontakte among Moldovans. Since only 25 persons answered these questions, it is not quite representative in quantitative terms, but gives a global idea of the different opinions Moldovans have about language and identity questions.
The survey consisted of 20 questions: four questions were about the personalia of the respondents, twelve were about language and three were about identity. 16 male and 9 female persons between the ages of 18 and 64 filled out the questionnaire: 6 persons are between the ages of 18-24, 13 persons between 25-44 and 6 between 45-64. 12 out of 25 live in Chişinău, 3 in Bălţi, 1 in Romania, 1 in Taraclia, 1 in Tiraspol and 1 in Russia; 5 respondents filled out only ‘Moldova’. 16 respondents have the Moldovan nationality, 3 Russian, 2 Romanian, 2 Gagauz, 1 ‘Jewish’ and 1 Estonian. The respondents have different professions, e.g. manager, jurist, photographer, teacher, student and accountant.
With this small amount of respondents, it is impossible to have relevant and reliable statistics. Besides, I was not able to make any remarkable age/residence/profession-related conclusions. Because of this, I only used the results of this survey as a minor addition to this thesis, but did not base the entire conclusion on it. For the details of the survey, see Attachment I-III.
Language
12 respondents have Russian as native language, 8 Moldovan, 3 Romanian and 1 Gagauz. 1 respondent has both Romanian and Russian as native tongues. 15 out of 25 respondents claim to speak 2 or more languages fluently. 12 respondents speak Russian at home, 3 speak Romanian, 2 speak Moldovan, 1 Gagauz and 7 speak both Russian and Romanian/Moldovan. 13 respondents declare to speak in Russian ánd Romanian/Moldovan in a public situation, 8 only in Russian and 3 only in Moldovan; 1 respondent declares to always speak in the language of his collocutor.
15 respondents state that Moldovan should be the official language of the country, while 6 say it should be Romanian; 1 person declares that both Moldovan and Romanian should be official, while 1 person says that Moldovan and Russian should be official languages. 1 respondent states that only Russian should be the state language, while another says that the state language mentioned in the Constitution should be the only official language.
61 Ciscel, 143.
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Most of the respondents (18 out of 25, from different ages and with different professions and nationalities) agree that there is a linguistic conflict in Moldova, but not all of them (8 out of 18) feel that it affects their everyday life. Some mention that it is only a political, ‘artificial’ question. Some quotes of respondents about how the linguistic situation influences their lives:
“Civil servants sometimes ignore the complaints of citizens in the non-state language”.
Moldovan pedagogue (61), Chişinău, native tongue: Russian. “Often I don’t understand what I have to sign: documents are only in Moldovan.”
Jewish photographer (59), Chişinău, native tongue: Russian. “It does not influence my life. I try not to fixate on nonsense like this (i.e. linguistic problems).”
Moldovan surgeon (25), Chişinău, native tongue: Moldovan. “It really influences my life, it is a problem to find a job. Russian-speaking students can’t find jobs.”
Moldovan jurist (26), Bălţi, native tongue: Russian. “Russians living in Moldova do not learn the state language on principle.”
Romanian administrator (38), Chişinău, native tongue: Romanian. Identity
Besides questions about language, I incorporated four questions about identity in the survey.
Do you consider yourself to be ‘Moldovan’? If ‘no’, the identity of which people or nation do you consider yourself to have?
19 out of 25 respondents consider themselves to be Moldovan, 4 declare a Russian and 2 a Romanian identity. 9 of these 19 self-declared Moldovans have Romanian/Moldovan as their native tongue, and 9 have Russian as their first language. 1 respondent chooses Gagauz as native tongue and Moldovan as identity. 4 have Russian as both native tongue and identity and 2 choose Romanian as native language and identity. Some respondents say that they have the Moldovan identity because they were born or have been living their whole lives in Moldova:
“All inhabitants of Moldova are Moldovans, independent of nationality.”
Russian manager (27), Chişinău, native tongue: Russian.
Do you think that there exists a ‘Moldovan identity’?
17 of 22 (3 persons did not fill out this question) answer ‘yes’ to this question and believe that the Moldovan identity exists. 3 answer ‘no’, 2 are not sure. Some state that there are obvious ties with Romania, with which a part of history is shared.
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“Despite the fact that we are related to the Romanian branches, I believe that there is a Moldovan identity.”
Moldovan jurist (26), Bălţi, native tongue: Russian.
In case Romanian/Moldovan is your mother tongue: do you feel connected to the country of Romania and the Romanian people? In case Russian is your mother tongue: do you feel connected to the country of Russia and the Russian people?
7 out of 25 respondents with Russian as first language answer ‘yes’ to this question: they feel connected to Russia. 3 of the Romanian/Moldovan native speakers feel connected to Romania. 8 respondents do not feel connected to either Romania or Russia, despite the shared language. 7 persons answer that they feel a connection to Moldova.
“My native tongue is Russian and there is a natural bond with Russia and Russian-speakers, but I consider Moldova my motherland.”
Moldovan manager (27), Chişinău, native tongue: Russian. “I speak Russian as a first language but I don’t feel connected to Russia. I am a patriot of
my motherland Moldova, independent of which language they speak there!”
Moldovan jurist (26), Bălţi, native tongue: Russian. “I feel connected to Moldova. I love my country and my people; I love all people who are good and friendly.”
Moldovan jurist (53), place of residence unknown, native tongue: Moldovan. “Yes, I am Russian and consider the inhabitants of Russia as my brothers”.
Russian engineer (28), Tiraspol, native tongue: Russian. “I think that we should live with Russia like brother people. With Romania, something like that is not possible. We Moldovans are historically part of the Russian world.”
Moldovan jurist (30), Bălţi, native tongue: Russian. “I speak Romanian and of course our relatives live in Romania.”
Romanian administrator (38), Chişinău, native tongue: Romanian. “I do not feel a connection to any state or anyone.”
Moldovan surgeon (25), Chişinău, native tongue: Moldovan. Most Moldovans choose the Moldovan identity, despite not speaking the state language as a native tongue. The majority of the respondents believe that there is a Moldovan identity without any doubt. Despite choosing the Moldovan identity, some respondents feel connected to Russia or Romania, although the majority only feels connection to their motherland Moldova, or does not feel a connection to any country at all.
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CHAPTER 2 – Present Moldova: demography, language, policies and problems
In short, its history has left the Republic of Moldova divided and full of different ethnicities. Although most inhabitants consider themselves Moldovan, there are considerable ethnic minorities of Ukrainians, Russians, Bulgarians and Gagauzians, who all have their own languages. Furthermore, there are two autonomous regions which declared themselves independent two decades ago: Transnistria and Gagauzia.2.1 Demography and language statistics
2.1.1 Demography
According to the most recent census of 2004, the population of the Republic of Moldova (including the two autonomous regions) shrank from 4.3 million in 1989 to just over 3.9 million in 2004.63 Due to low birth-rates and
post-Soviet emigration the population had decreased by almost half a million. Besides, many Moldovans, especially youth, have left the country in search of work and a better life. Over 8% of its population is temporarily abroad working in Russia, Italy, Spain, and several other countries. Transnistria reported 6.5% of its population working abroad. These numbers are believed to be quite conservative, taking into account reports about emigrants who illegally travel abroad but officially remain present in their town or village.64
The Moldovan population (including Transnistria – see Table 1) is 69.6% Moldovan, 11.2% Ukrainian, 9.4% Russian, 3.8% Gagauz, 1.9% Romanian, 0.3% Roma and 1.7% other ethnicities. In Moldova (excluding Transnistria – see Table 2), 75.8% of the population self-identified as Moldovan, 8.4% as Ukrainian, 5.9% as Russian, 4.3% as Gagauz, 2.2 % as Romanian, 1.9% as Bulgarian, and 1.3% as representatives of other ethnic groups.65
63 National Bureau of Statistics of the Republic of Moldova - Census 2004: www.statistica.md 64 Matthew H. Ciscel, ‘Reform and relapse in bilingual policy in Moldova’ (2010), 17.
65 Census 2004.
The Republic of Moldova with autonomous regions Transnistria and Gagauzia
