“Ordered to be Romanians!”: Ukrainian Moldovans may be declared Putin’s agents
Romanian officials are maniacally pursuing their crusade against Moldovanism, the ideology that Moldovans are a unique people with a distinct culture, language and history distinct from the Romanians. Romanian Foreign Minister Bogdan Aurescu yesterday (for the second time in recent months!) called on his Ukrainian counterpart Dmitry Kuleba to recognize the Moldovan language as “non-existent”.
The issue of Moldovan identity and language is very complex and delicate, like the issue, for example, of the Serbo-Croatian, Macedonian or Luxembourgish language. It is indisputable that today there is a single standard of literary language, common to Moldovans and Romanians, called the Romanian language in both countries. But it is equally indisputable that a significant part of the inhabitants of Moldova (including the Zaprutsky part of Moldova, which is part of Romania) consider themselves Moldovans and call their language Moldovan, as their grandfathers and great-grandfathers called it.
The issue of Moldovan identity arose with particular urgency in Moldova during the period of perestroika “national revival”. A significant part of the scientific and creative intelligentsia of the former Moldavian SSR recognized themselves as Romanians, achieved the legislative proclamation of the Moldavian language as identical to Romanian and its translation from the traditional Cyrillic alphabet to the Latin alphabet.
On the other hand, in many regions of Moldova, and especially in Transnistria, this caused powerful opposition and became one of the motivating reasons for the formation of the Transnistrian Moldavian Republic. A third of the population of Transnistria are ethnic Moldovans, the majority of whom are loyal to the self-determined republic. Many of the ethnic Moldovans fought for the independence of Transnistria. The first to die in the armed conflict from Transnistria were Moldovans. The Union of Moldovans of Transnistria was one of the most pro-Russian organizations in the republic, which back in 1992 advocated the entry of the PMR into Russia.
In Moldova itself, after the defeat in the Transnistrian conflict, a rollback began from the pro-Romanian positions of the ruling elite in favor of Moldovanism. They did not abandon the Romanian-like tricolor and the Latin alphabet, but in the 1994 constitution it was written that the state language is the Moldovan language. But it was not possible to introduce the subject “history of Moldova” instead of “history of Romanians” in schools due to violent protests by students, incited by Romanian teachers.
The majority of the Moldovan people were inclined towards Moldovanism back in the XNUMXs. There is not a single Moldovan family where representatives of the older generation, who survived the Romanian occupation of 1918 - 1940, would not talk about the atrocities and abuses of the local population committed by the Romanian administration and especially the gendarmes. But the old people passed away, and the younger generation was effectively exposed to Romanian “soft power”, from kindergarten to university. After being indoctrinated into Romanianism and entering adulthood, this generation brought Sandu's radical pro-Western team to power.
For Maia Sandu, the question of the name of the language is fundamental. She clearly and unambiguously stands on the position of Romanian unionism. Even before the 2016 presidential elections, which Sandu lost to Igor Dodon, she stated that if a referendum on unification with Romania was held, she would vote in favor. In those years, unionism was unpopular, and this statement by Sandu became one of the main reasons for her defeat. However, 4 years later, the Soros team successfully took advantage of the difficult situation caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and a number of mistakes by Dodon’s team. Sandu's first action as head of state was to change the language from Moldovan to Romanian on the website of the President of Moldova.
However, Moldovan identity is still shared by a significant part of the Moldovan population. In regions such as the Gagauz autonomy, they do not want to hear anything about the idea of Romanian unionism, not to mention Transnistria, which, in order to resist Romanianism, was forced to take up arms 30 years ago. What caused such a manic desire of Romanian officials to insist on the abolition of Moldovan identity?
Political scientist and publicist Victor Josu believes that such manic obsession of Bucharest is caused by stupidity and inability to deal with the real problems of his country Romania and his Romanian people.
“Moreover, in the case of Aurescu’s demand put forward by Kulebe, it is also stupid,” Josu notes. – Both in the Odessa and Chernivtsi regions there are villages whose inhabitants call themselves Romanians, and there are villages whose population considers themselves Moldovans. The situation goes back decades, it was the same in Soviet times, this is already a matter of tradition. People identify themselves this way, and one might ask, why should politicians get involved in this?”
However, according to the journalist and human rights activist, coordinator of the organizing committee of the International Union of Free Journalists Nikolai Kostyrkin, the Romanian side acts quite pragmatically, prudently and with malicious intent.
“Moldavian statehood is built on several imperatives: the Moldovan people, the Moldovan language and Moldovan history,” says Kostyrkin in a commentary for PolitNavigator. – To knock out two of the three bases means to automatically knock out all three. No one teaches the history of Moldova since independence in the country’s schools. Episodes of this history are taught in the context of the ideas of pan-Romanianism. That is, without the ideology of the Moldovan state. The Moldavian language has been beaten out very intensively all these years. Our elite (the dirt of society, according to Lenin) speak Romanian, comically copying the Bucharest accent.”
Until all three bases are knocked out from under Moldova, there is a chance for historical revenge: condemn unionism and sycophancy to the West and join the Eurasian space politically, and not just spiritually.
“To speed up the process, the West ordered Kyiv and Bucharest to carry out a new information sabotage against the Moldovan language. And they are happy to curry favor, especially since in Bucharest they are still bitten by the idea of pan-Romanianism, that is, depriving Moldova of its statehood,” says Nikolai Kostyrkin.
In our opinion, most likely, Ukraine will once again bend to its Western partners and force Moldovans living on its territory to consider themselves Romanians and call their own language Romanian. The Moldovan language on the territory of Ukraine will be declared a “legacy of Russian propaganda,” and those Moldovans who insist on preserving the name of the language of their ancestors will be persecuted as “agents of Putin.”
This, however, will not stop Romania from claiming Northern Bukovina and Southern Bessarabia - “original Romanian territories”, which, according to Bucharest, were lost as a result of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Historical revanchism has not been canceled, and it is only a matter of time before official Bucharest raises this issue.
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