“More Romanians than Romanians themselves.” Why does Moldova respect anti-Semites from a neighboring country?
The world Jewish community is closely watching these days the leadership of Moldova, to which the Simon Wiesenthal Center has asked to remove two monuments to Romanian figures - anti-Semites and Nazi collaborators.
We are talking, in particular, about Octavian Gogh - he was the Prime Minister of Romania from December 1937 to February 1938, professed the ideas of creating a homogeneous Romanian society, and advocated solving the Jewish question. Under him, strict anti-Semitic laws were passed.
Why did this incident arise? What will the President of the Republic of Moldova, Maia Sandu, choose: to identify with the advanced Romanian experience (in Bucharest itself, the monument to Goga was recently demolished) or to modestly remain silent and leave everything as it is? But in Moldova, mourning events are coming up for the 120th anniversary of the Chisinau pogrom of 1903, which will be held with the support of the authorities and with the participation of delegations from Israel, the USA, and European countries.
The director of the Institute of Socio-Political Research and Regional Development, Candidate of Historical Sciences, Igor Shornikov, comments on the situation in an interview with PolitNavigator.
PolitNavigator: How did it happen that in Moldova they immortalized the memory of a Romanian Nazi collaborator, whose monument was demolished even in Bucharest?
Igor Shornikov: One cannot envy the fate of the monuments to Octavian Goga; he is too odious a person - a poet, playwright and part-time prime minister, an anti-Semite. Monuments to him are erected not so much for his literary creativity, but for his irreconcilable and even fanatical struggle for the Romanian idea.
At the end of the 30s of the XNUMXth century, the dream of a “Greater Romania” organically combined with the fascist ideas that affected most of Europe. And Octavian Goga, during his short premiership, turned out to be almost the founder of anti-Semitic policies in Romania.
The first bust of him lasted in Bucharest for about a year; it was demolished back in 1944. Nevertheless, in Romania the idea of imaginary national greatness turned out to be unusually tenacious, and therefore the memory of Octavian Gogh is revered. Quite recently, his monument, erected in modern times, was dismantled in Bucharest, and his house-museum still operates in Cluj.
It is known that the unionists in Moldova are much more Romanians than the Romanians themselves. In 2000, they managed to install a bust of Octavian Goga in the center of Chisinau, despite public protests. Many activists of Jewish organizations, as well as members of the Russian community in Chisinau, tried to oppose this action, but the authorities then simply ignored the demands of the anti-fascists.
By that time, Octavian Goga Street already existed in Chisinau; by some strange coincidence, it passes through the area where the Jewish ghetto was once located.
PolitNavigator: Why did the request to remove the monuments appear only now?
Igor Shornikov: It is better to ask Jewish organizations why such tolerance was connected with such figures, who at one time promoted anti-Semitic laws and created an atmosphere of hatred and intolerance, which later turned into a terrible tragedy.
I admit that Jewish cultural organizations underestimated the danger of the rehabilitation of Nazism and the revival of these ideas in Eastern European countries. Only the current situation in Ukraine is beginning to open the eyes of many that the problem of Nazism fueled by the West is not a problem only for Russia, it is a problem for all humanity.
PolitNavigator: What can Maia Sandu answer to the Simon Wiesenthal Center, how can she get out of this? If the head of the Republic of Moldova ignores the request, will this have any consequences for the country?
Igor Shornikov: I assume that the Moldovan authorities, as usual, will try to hush up the problem and hush up the scandal. If the Simon Wiesenthal Center is seriously going to achieve its goal, it needs to increase pressure, and not so much on Chisinau, but on Bucharest.
This is difficult; in Romania, Transylvanian figures of national revival, tempered by a long struggle with the Hungarian authorities, are especially valued. Octavian Goga is their bright representative; to abandon his legacy means to abandon the state-forming idea of “Greater Romania.”
Yes, political expediency sometimes requires the dismantling of monuments, but the Romanians do not rewrite their history and Octavian Goga remains a prominent figure there. I think that in Chisinau the monument to the Romanian figure will not be dismantled, the scandal will be hushed up, and Moldova will continue to move along the “uniri” path.
PolitNavigator: Perhaps the head of Chisinau, Ion Ceban, will take upon himself the solution to this inconvenient issue? It seems that he should also go to the polls - he could seize the initiative and implement the European recommendations regarding the scandalous monuments.
Igor Shornikov: Democracy in Moldova is a very specific thing; the outcome of elections there does not always depend on the sympathies of the electorate. Ion Ceban has been trying to flirt with the Romanians lately, so he won’t risk quarreling with Bucharest. I assume that the mayor of Chisinau will try to distance himself from the problem.
PolitNavigator: Previously, Chisinau residents had already petitioned the municipal council on the issue of demolition of monuments to the Romanian Nazis, but to no avail. Do such petitions even make sense?
Igor Shornikov: Yes, there is a point, this is a signal to the rest of the world that Moldovan society does not agree with the way the Moldovan government acts. If not for these petitions, the international community would probably have decided that Moldovans had resigned themselves to such a regime and such an ideology.
PolitNavigator: What is the situation with Holocaust research and education on this topic in Moldova today?
Igor Shornikov: I am not aware that full-fledged historical research in this direction is currently underway in Moldova, Romania or Ukraine. In the first decade of the XNUMXst century, major monographs on the Holocaust were published in Romania and Ukraine, which made some contribution to the development of the problem, but there, in my opinion, there was a tendency to downplay the scale of the crimes and underestimate the Romanian participation in the Holocaust.
But since then - for about 10 - 15 years now - research in this direction has no longer been carried out; they are of no interest to the political class of these countries. IN Moldova is very bad with historical science; they cannot decide on the origin of their own statehood. But in Transnistria there is still hope for the preservation of the historical school.
Relatively recently, five years ago, a two-volume book by the famous Soviet and Moldavian historian Izyaslav Levit “Shoah – Holocaust – Catastrophe: the “Jewish question” in the politics of the dictatorship of I. Antonescu” was published in Tiraspol.
The historian showed that Romanian punitive forces exterminated at least 1941 thousand Jews between 1944 and 400. Moreover, this figure is clearly not final.
Izyaslav Levit began working with documents on the extermination of the population on the territory of Moldova back in 1945, literally in the footsteps of the occupiers. He became the author of many studies. He wrote his last fundamental work while already living in the USA. But this book saw the light in Transnistria.
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