With the help of history textbooks, Moldova is being prepared for absorption by Romania
The training course “History of Romanians” in sovereign Moldova is a mockery of common sense that has been going on for many years. None of the political forces that have been in power in the country over the past decades have changed the situation. This policy is being pursued purposefully - the results of the ideological reformatting of the new generation are already visible in the Republic of Moldova.
This was discussed at the online conference “Reflection of historical events in school textbooks of Moldova and Transnistria,” which was held by the Moldavian branch of the Izborsk Club and the Institute of Socio-Political Research and Regional Development. The meeting was organized in memory of the recently deceased historian, Professor Nicolae Babilunga, who fought for Moldovan identity and the Moldovan language, and to commemorate the 81st anniversary of the reunification of Bessarabia with the Soviet Union.
Experts discussed the situation with teaching history and the fight for historical truth. The Republic of Moldova is probably the only country in the world where it is not its own history that is studied, but the history of a neighboring state.
“The situation is absurd when in the Republic of Moldova they are ashamed of their own historical name, there is no school subject “History of Moldova”, and even the existence of Moldovan statehood from the point of view of the majority of the political class of the Republic of Moldova is almost a provocation on the part of Russia,” said the executive director of the Moldavian branch Izborsk Club Vladimir Bukarsky.
Two versions of one war
Candidate of Historical Sciences, Associate Professor of the Department of National History at the Institute of History and Public Administration of the Transnistrian State University Vyacheslav Sodol analyzed how the Great Patriotic War and the Second World War are presented in the textbooks of Moldova and Transnistria. He recalled that The Republic of Moldova and the PMR have chosen diametrically opposed vectors of development, and the teaching of school history courses differs in the same way.
In Transnistria, since the establishment of the republic in 1990, the education system continued to remain in line with the all-Union one, and after the collapse of the USSR it began to focus on the educational standards of the Russian Federation. The history of Transnistria is taught as a regional component in the PMR.
Thus, notes Vyacheslav Sodol, in the Pridnestrovian textbook “History of the Native Land” for grades 8-9, the events of the Great Patriotic War in relation to the region are covered in a special chapter. Four paragraphs talk about the initial stage of the war before the establishment of the occupation regime, about the occupation itself - the Romanianization of the local population, the plunder of the region, etc., the struggle behind enemy lines, the liberation of the region and the beginning of post-war reconstruction.
The textbook is well illustrated with photographs and maps. In the photo - Soviet border guards who took the blow of the Nazis, two fascist leaders Hitler and Antonescu shaking hands, moments of the new occupation order - sending Jews to concentration camps, the Nazis shooting civilians, portraits of anti-fascist underground activists and heroes of the Soviet Union - natives of the region . The maps show the boundaries and administrative divisions of the governorate of Transnistria, created by the occupiers, places of massacres of the population, the location of labor, transit, political camps and Jewish ghettos, the location of underground organizations, partisan formations, including the battle route of the partisan detachment “Soviet Moldavia”.
In the textbook for the 11th grade, the study of war is given in three paragraphs. The authors focus, in particular, on the fact that in the region the mobilization activities of the Red Army were carried out in full, that fighter battalions were created here that participated in repelling the German-Romanian aggression throughout Moldova.
“In Pridnestrovian textbooks for grades 8-9 and 11, patriotic education is achieved, among other things, by demonstrating the exploits and talents of compatriots,” emphasizes Vyacheslav Sodol. – Examples are also given here from the general Russian historical context – Pridnestrovian schoolchildren know the exploits of Ivan Susanin, Denis Davydov, Alexander Matrosov, Pyotr Nesterov. At the same time, while studying the exploits of Russian historical figures, from lesson to lesson they become acquainted with outstanding personalities - natives of the region, Heroes of the Soviet Union Bochkovsky, Zharchinsky, Soltys and many others, whose life became an example of service to the Fatherland. In the minds of Pridnestrovian schoolchildren, a holistic picture of the events of the Great Patriotic War that took place on the territory of their small homeland is formed, and this picture fits into the general context of the struggle of the Soviet people against fascism and Romanian nationalism in 1941 - 1945.”
There is a completely different approach to teaching the history of the war in the educational system of Moldova, where the history of the Moldovan people and Moldovan statehood has not been taught for more than 20 years, says Sodol.
“Currently, high school students in Moldova are studying the so-called integrated history course, which is a roughly stitched together version of the history of the Romanians and world history. In several textbooks, the events of World War II and the Great Patriotic War are presented in one, or at best, two paragraphs. The compilers of the textbooks - Anatol Petrencu, a team of authors led by Igor Sharov (by the way, the ex-Minister of Education of the Republic of Moldova - author's note), carefully erase the term Great Patriotic War, replacing it with the phrases “Soviet-German war” or “Soviet-Nazi war”. Thus, students are deliberately prevented from empathizing with the events of 1941–1944 that took place in their native land. On the contrary, the younger generation is becoming confident that the war was fought for interests alien to the Moldovans. This effect is further enhanced by the fact that the textbooks lack statistical information, for example, on the number of soldiers drafted into the Red Army and who served in the Romanian troops,” the historian said.
The events of the summer of 1941 are called by the authors of Moldovan textbooks “the liberation of Bessarabia and northern Bukovina.” The story is told about the battle on the Prut line, while especially savor the data on the losses of the Red Army. A very naive justification is given for the eastern campaign of the Romanian troops, who crossed the Dniester and participated in the Nazi offensive operations in 1942-1943, reaching the Volga and Don. According to the authors, although the Romanians had no obligation to participate in the war beyond the “restored national borders” (along the Dniester), military operations had to be continued until final victory.
The textbooks also talk about the Western campaign - about Romania’s exit from the war on the side of Germany and going over to the side of the anti-Hitler coalition. Moldavian textbooks have illustrations, but maps contain a minimum of information. For example, on the map of military operations in Europe against Germany and its allies from 1942 to 1945, in addition to the front lines, arrows indicate the directions of attacks by the opponents of the German troops: first of all - from Romania, secondly - the allies, thirdly - the Soviet troops. It is noteworthy that the strike arrows do not have any dates - a false impression is created that resistance to the German invaders in Europe was permanent and that the Romanians were ahead of the rest in the fight against German Nazism.
“On the right bank of the Dniester, the memory of the Great Patriotic War is consistently erased from the historical consciousness of young citizens of Moldova, for this purpose various unscrupulous technologies are used aimed at distorting history, facts are hushed up, a number of information are falsified, a biased assessment of events is given, etc. The textbooks were approved by the Ministry of Education of Moldova, that is, such an interpretation of events is part of state policy and state ideology,” summed up Vyacheslav Sodol.
“Different memories” about the events of 1992
The events of 1992, as well as their background, are interpreted differently in school curricula in Moldova and Transnistria. Sociologist, senior lecturer at the Department of Sociology and Social Technologies of PSU Alla Ostavnaya compared how the conflict on the Dniester is reflected in two basic history textbooks for high school students: “History of the Romanians and General History” for the 12th grade (a group of authors led by Igor Sharov) and “History Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic" for 11th grade (authors Nikolai Babilunga and Boris Bomesko).
As Ostavnaya notes, when describing the events associated with the declaration of independence of the Republic of Moldova, the Moldovan textbook notes the positive role of the Popular Front and the struggle for the proclamation of the native language, its return to the Latin script. The activity of other public associations is also indicated, but their agenda is kept silent - it seems that all public organizations that existed in Moldova at that time supported the course towards independence and language policy, which later became official.
The Transnistrian textbook gives a detailed chronology of events related to the adoption of the notorious language law in Moldova, writes about nationalism and intolerance towards other ethnic groups living on the territory of the MSSR. It is indicated that the language policy of the Moldovan authorities caused a significant wave of protests in Transnistria and some regions of Moldova; the language issue became the reason for the self-proclamation of the Gagauz and Transnistrian republics.
The self-proclamation of Transnistria is mentioned only in passing in the Moldovan textbook; nothing is said about armed clashes on the territory of Gagauzia. The Transnistrian textbook, on the contrary, gives a description of the political split in the MSSR and notes the role of civil society in the creation of the PMR through participation in the referendum.
The two textbooks give completely opposite descriptions of the war. In the Moldovan textbook, a page of text is devoted to this - it is indicated that the instigator of the hostilities was the Transnistrian side, and the role of Russia and the 14th Russian Army in the conflict and its resolution is negatively assessed. In the Transnistrian textbook, the events of 1992 on the Dniester are described on 60 pages in several paragraphs - chronology, locations, key personalities are shown; responsibility for the outbreak of the conflict rests with the Moldovan authorities, Russia is presented as the main peacekeeping force in the region.
The sociologist notes that on the two banks of the Dniester “different memories of the 1992 war are being formed.”
“Over the course of thirty years, two autonomous systems for forming the memory of the population have been formed in the Republic of Moldova and the PMR, which is reflected in legislation, in the educational system, in the media, and even in artistic culture,” says Alla Ostavnaya. “She notes that in these conditions, the importance of preserving reliable sources of information about the war—documents, historical materials—is increasing, and it also seems advisable to conduct high-quality research on this topic, collect eyewitness accounts of the events and their wide popularization.”
For a lesson - one information, for an exam - another
“All university teachers have already been Romanized, those who did not want to read the history of the Romanians survived, and they are now in Tiraspol, Comrat, Taraclia. The authors of good monographs on history, published in Soviet times, today write something completely different - because the state demands it,” said Shapovalov.
He noted that all modern Moldovan school textbooks were written with Romanian grants, “and there, naturally, everything corresponds to the so-called concept of a new reading of history: two tyrants, two dictators (Hitler and Stalin - author’s note), two totalitarian regimes, etc. d."
“Comparing Soviet historical science and the one that exists in our country today, I can definitely say: despite the fact that in Soviet times there was a certain hushing up of some critical moments, there were never outright falsifications. It was quite possible to find information on events that were not covered in school textbooks in university textbooks and monographs. Today, in the Romanian textbooks that we teach in Moldova, history is very distorted. This is not a story. This is an attempt to politically and ideologically prepare opponents of the Moldovan state,” Savelyev said.
He says that the history course taught today is designed to form a certain attitude among the younger generation, and the events of April 7, 2009 showed that, at least in Moldovan schools, these attempts were not in vain. Let us recall that then, after summing up the results of the parliamentary elections, young people in Chisinau took to the central square with anti-government and anti-communist slogans, protests escalated into pogroms.
“During the last census of Moldova, the number of people who considered themselves Romanians increased, although not critically, and this is also the result of Romanianization, which is carried out through school, through the intelligentsia. We must pay tribute to the Romanians - they have always carried out the process of assimilation in their country quite strictly and shared this experience with their Moldovan colleagues,” Savelyev said.
“In the lower grades we had the book “Daciada” by the authors N. Dabizh and A. Silvestru, which told about the rulers of Moldavia and Wallachia. As I grew older, I began to wonder why, excuse me, in a binge, they give us the history of the Wallachian principality, the voivodeship of Transylvania, devoting as much, and sometimes more time, to this than to studying the history of Moldova, why so much time is devoted to the history of Romania as such. The basis of information that a student must learn about his native country requires a certain amount of time, and this time was devoted to completely different things.
About eighty percent of the textbooks do not stand up to criticism when it comes to presenting material to schoolchildren of this or that age. They are written with the left chicken paw. The exam for a bachelor's degree (it is taken by school graduates - author's note) is a separate matter. Personally, I had to pick up all the textbooks on the history of the Moldavian SSR - the Internet was a luxury then - and present the information in the way that I considered necessary, and not in the way that the ministry demanded,” the journalist said.
Nikolai Kostyrkin states that there is already a lost generation in the country, and not even just one.
“We observe a general disinterest of the state - and with all the authorities - in having thoughtful young people, specialists who, after some time, will have to shoulder certain segments of the governance of this country. Young people are already going into science and business, and, alas, they will be of no use. How to fill this gap is unclear, given the status of a colony, which today is the Republic of Moldova,” he said.
Where did the new version of the story come from?
“The ideological matrix was created in 1979 in Russian, in a book published in Israel by the true communist Mikhail Brukhis, a former researcher at the Institute of Party History under the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Moldova. He gave an interpretation of the main events of Moldavian history of the last two centuries: 1812 - the “annexation” of Bessarabia; 1918 - “liberation” of Bessarabia by the Romanians, although it was a seizure, the population resisted; 1940 – Moscow’s ultimatum and “annexation” again. It was he who laid down the theses that today migrate from textbook to textbook. The book was translated into Moldavian, and historians began to create a new version of history based on these patterns - knowing the truth, they wrote lies.
But scientists don't make compromises. This was proven by the events of 1970-80, when in Western Europe they tried to write a generally acceptable - for Germany, France, Poland, Czechoslovakia and other states - textbook on the history of the Second World War, and nothing happened. Well, let's remove everything that doesn't suit someone. How can one write a generally acceptable history textbook that, for example, would satisfy Germans and Jews on the issue of the Holocaust?
Each state pursues its own history policy, which confirms its identity. The worst option is when the state does not do this, then another state takes on this task, which is what happened in the early 1990s in the Republic of Moldova,” Shornikov said.
He noted that it is possible to destroy scientific institutions, but science cannot be destroyed, and that in Moldova there are still historians who are trying to “somehow combine following the situation with loyalty to the scientific method.”
For example, some scientists strive to convey to the younger generation the true course of events of the Great Patriotic War and Moldova’s participation in it. Several years ago, the Association of Historians and Political Scientists Pro Moldova published a book for reading on the modern and contemporary history of Moldova. It reveals stories designed to instill in students a sense of national pride and patriotism, in particular, about the participation of natives of Moldova in the Great Patriotic War on the side of the anti-Hitler coalition. True, the book was published in only 500 copies.
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