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Bessarabian Borderlands: One Region, Two States, Multiple Ethnicities Deema Kaneff, Monica Heintz

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Bessarabian Borderlands: One Region, Two States, Multiple Ethnicities Deema Kaneff, Monica Heintz Bessarabian Borderlands: one region, two states, multiple ethnicities Deema Kaneff, Monica Heintz To cite this version: Deema Kaneff, Monica Heintz. Bessarabian Borderlands: one region, two states, multiple ethnicities. Anthropology of East Europe Review, 2006, State borders and local boundaries: the case of Bessarabia, 1 (24), pp. 6-16. hal-02895561 HAL Id: hal-02895561 https://hal.parisnanterre.fr//hal-02895561 Submitted on 25 Aug 2020 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Introduction BESSARABIAN BORDERLANDS: ONE REGION, TWO STATES, MULTIPLE ETHNICITIES D. Kaneff Max Planck Jnstitute for Social Anthropology, Halle, Germany & M. Heintz University of Paris X- Nanterre In May 2003, the Governor from Odessa, between Romania and Soviet Union was relaxed after accompanied by an entourage of other officiais, 1989, but is being reinforced again, in preparation for visited a •village situated in the most southern part of the admittance of Romania to the European Union Odessa province, near the district capital of Reni on due to take place in 2007. While the rise of new the Danube river, Uhaine. The occasion for the borders and nation-states are changes to be reckoned gathering of officiais was the opening of the gas with in the region, this collection of articles also pipeline in the district. The Governor began his considers other boundaries that prove equally speech in Russian with the statement 'People ask significant: boundaries of a historical, ethnie or where is the Reniiski raion. And the answer is - at economic nature, which delineate the area aJong the end of Ukraine, almost in Romania!'. He then different configurations. The crosscutting of political briefly paused and as an afterthought added 'sorry, borders and ethnie and economic boundaries results shall I speak in Russian or Ukrainian?'. The loud in a shifting map of spaces and identities. While in chorus from the largely village audience confirmed some contexts the historically denoted region of that he should continue in Russian, while one man, Bessarabia is the significant unit, on other occasions leaned over to his neighbour and in good humour the smaller unit of 'village' is the point of reference ridiculed the futility of giving the speech in any other (be it a Moldovan, Bulgarian, Gagauz or ethnically language. mixed village). On other occasions, citizenship in the new nation-state is of central importance. 1 In these opening moments of the speech public acknowledgement was made of the geo­ In this paper we consider borders in the most administrative periphery of this southernmost tip of broad sense, that is, as both literai (ie actual geographical) l,orders anèi conceptual (socio-culturaJ) Ukraine. Language too was highlighted as a sensitive 2 issue - a bone of particular contention in the boundaries . Bessarabia is� site of multiple borders traditionally Russian speaking Odessa region where and boundaries which 'delimit what is to be included inhabitants feel marginalised in the new Ukraine state and excluded' (Rosier & Wendl 1999: 2). Thus that has failed to acknowledge Russian as the 'borderlands represent a juncture between the literai nation's second official language. The audience and conceptual' borders (Rosier & Wendl: 226). In (ethnie Moldovans, Bulgarians, Gagauz, Russians fact an important theme of the papers in this and Ukrainians), perhaps more than the officiais, collection is that in order to understand this particular appreciated Russian as the only common Ianguage borderland region, we need to look at literai borders between them in this ethnically mixed region. and conceptual boundaries as complementary processes that sometimes reinforce each other, Political and economic reform across eastern sometimes subvert each other. Underlying this focus Eurçpe and the former Soviet Union was on the complementary relationship between litera) accompanied by the dismantling/establishing of borders and conceptual boundaries is the recognition borders and the emergence of new nation states. that such places are always areas of contested power Bessarabia, the region we are looking at in this (Wilson & Donnan 1998: I O & 26), a point volume, was until recently a part of the Soviet Union, highlighted by the changing · configuration of both with an interna) border extending across two states - borders and boundaries in Bessarabia. While it is the Ukraiqian SSR and the Moldovan SSR. This clear that literai borders have changed over time, as internai border became an international border after various powers exerting influence over the area have I 991, following proclamations of independence by either expanded or contracted their spheres of · the two Republics. At the same time, the strictly influence, conceptual boundaries, based on ethnicity regulated border in the west established in 1944 and shared history, have remained more constant (although they too have changed). What is required is periphery in the case of Ukraine), it is necessary to an exploration of how the construction and highlight a number of historical moments in the dismantling of state borders intersects with the locality's past. formation· and dissolving of conceptual boundaries The Bessarabian region lies between the (Pelkmans, in press; Berdahl 1999). The aim of this Prut, the Danube and the Nistru rivers, covering the collection is more modest: the papers that follow vast part of what is now Moldova as well as the suggest that both boundaries and borders are being southwestern most part of Ukraine (south of Odessa­ re-valued and used as a resource, particularly at such 3 to the Romanian border - see map below). The times of économie uncertainty. regional name 'Bessarabia' began its geopolitical This volume consists of a collection of existence in 1812, with the incorporation of the essays that were originally presented at a workshop eastern part of the Romanian principality of Moldova convened in March 2005 at the Max Planck Institute into the Russian Empire following the Russian­ 4 for Social Anthropology in Halle . Many of the Turkish War of 1806-12. Previously the term had participant,s were local scholars working on the been used to designate only the southern part of region from, a variety of academic backgrounds: Bessarabia that had belonged to the Romanian history, sociology. and ethnology. But in every case principality of Wallachia in the 14th century (hence the authors look at bourldaries or borders in the the name 'Bessarabia', which is derived from context of the new nation-states and economic 'Besarab', the name of the ruling dynasty of hardship. The first paper takes a historical Wallachia). Bessarabia was the target of large perspective of economic relations in the region population influx from the mid-18th century onwards. (Samkhvalov & Samkhvalov) while the second Before this it was sparselr settled by Romanians and focuses on one type of economic activity - cross - from the end of the 17 1 century - also by Russian border trading (Polese). Migration based on Old Believers escaping religious persecution in other ethnic/historical alliances is presented as a response parts of the Russian Empire). As part of the Russian to present difficulties (Ganchev and Demirdirek), Empire, the zone became the home to different while other authors (Anastasova and Boneva) groups: Bulgarians escaping repression from the identify the reverse process - an inward retreat by Ottoman Empire, Gagauz, Germans, Poles and Jews. locals that rejects the integrating nationalising The new settlers were encouraged to settle by the policies of the new states. granting of freeland allotments (Gitelman, 1995). In the following section we look at the history of Bessarabia. Our intention is not to give a detailed or exhaustive record of the region's past, but to highlight the main borders and boundaries that exist in present day Bessarabia and identify their historical source. This allows us, in the section after, to look at how locals negotiate daily with these differentborders and boundaries, calling on them in a variety of enterprising ways and using them to their advantage in the difficult economic situations. In the Conclusion we return to our wider concern: boundaries and borders as a strategic resource which varies in different contexts, where sometimes the nation-state, sometimes the region and sometimes the local village provide the guiding framework forlocal activities.5 State borders and local boundaries Bessarabia can be thought of as an 'institutionalised' borderland, in the sense that it has always been located in a peripheral position with respect to centres of political and often also economjc power.· In understanding the present position of Bessarabia as both a local 'centre' (for people living in· the area) and a periphery (econorrucally and politically, also an administrative/geographical Precisely because of the peripheral character particularly difficult position. One local response was of the region - located at the margins of the Ottoman to play up Soviet citizenship rather than nationality. and Russian Empires, it was a crossroad and The presence of internai borders didn't hinder travel frequently a battlefield - the place attracted those across the Soviet Union for work, education or seeking religious and ethnie freedoms. In 1856, in leisure activities. For example, during the 1980s, it the aftermath of the Crimean War, Russia lost the was not uncommon for rural inhabitants from two most southern districts of Bessarabia to the Bessarabia - often entire families - to move to prinçipality of Moldova, which united three years Kazakstan or other Central Asian republics for work 7 later with the principality of Wallachia to form the migration .
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