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The Republic of Moldova Articles Section 71 Problems, Progress and Prospects in a Post-Soviet Borderland: The Republic of Moldova Trevor Waters Introduction annexed territory, Northern Bucovina in the north Conflict in Moldova quickened with the nationalist and Southern Bessarabia in the south, were ferment over matters of language, culture and transferred to Ukraine (and now form Chernovtsy identity which consumed the Soviet republic in Oblast and the southern part of Odessa Oblast 1989 and surfaced with the secession of Gagauzia respectively). A strip of land along the eastern (or and Transnistria in 1990. Civil war, continuing left) bank of the Dnestr river (Transnistria) was difficulties with territorial separatism, linguistic and detached from Ukraine, however, and added to the ethnic strife, Romanian irredentism and Great- central region of the annexed territory to become (in Russian chauvinism number among the most 1940) the Moldovan Soviet Socialist Republic and important problems that have plagued the Republic (in 1991) the sovereign Republic of Moldova of Moldova since its declaration of independence on (Figure 1). 27 August 1991. This paper examines some of the background factors which generated such problems In 1990 the Popular Front of Moldova made strident (some of which may appear to have a characteristic calls for the reintegration of the “historic Moldovan borderland nature, and may, indeed, be typical of lands” of Northern Bucovina and Southern borderland states), reviews the progress that has Bessarabia, while Ukraine flatly rejected what it been made towards their solution, and assesses regarded as irredentist pretensions. In November future prospects. 1994, however, Moldova and Ukraine signed an agreement which stipulates that the two sides have History and Geography no territorial claims on each other. The territory of the Republic of Moldova is not The strip of territory along the eastern bank of the coextensive with historic Moldovan lands which are Dnestr, detached from Ukraine and incorporated fragmented at the present time. The 1940 Molotov- into Moldova, which constitutes 15% of the Ribbentrop Pact allowed the Soviet Union to annex republic’s territory and provides the focus for the the eastern half of the Romanian province of present-day confrontation, has never been Moldova, and the annexation was confirmed in the considered part of traditional Moldovan lands, 1947 Peace Treaty between the USSR and Romania. although it has always contained a sizeable Moldovan population. Prior to the Revolution in It is worth recalling, however, that Bessarabia (the 1917 that left-bank Dnestr border territory formed Russian designation for the territory between the part of the Tsarist Empire and (in 1924) was Dnestr and the Prut, derived from an erstwhile incorporated into Ukraine as the Moldovan Romanian ruling house of Basarab) was Russian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. In from its liberation from the Turks in 1812 until Transnistria, then, unlike in western Moldova, 1917, when it proclaimed its independence from Sovietisation, and with it Russification, for instance Russia as the Democratic Republic of Moldova, and the use of the Cyrillic alphabet, was enforced for joined Romania in 1918. more than 70 years. Indeed, since the region formed a border area until World War II, and was thus In accordance with Stalin’s ‘divide and rule’ ideologically vulnerable because of ethno-linguistic nationalities policy, two of the three regions of the Moldovans and Romanians have always spoken of ‘Moldova’, while in the West we have generally called the territory by its Russian name ‘Moldavia’. ‘Dnestr’ (or variants, ‘Dniester’, ‘Dniestr’) is the Russian designation for the river the Moldovans and Romanians know as the ‘Nistru.’ In this paper, we refer to the self-styled, breakaway Transnistrian Moldovan Republic by its Russian initials, PMR (pridnestrovskaya moldovskaya respublika). IBRU Boundary and Security Bulletin Spring 1997 © 72 Articles Section Figure 1 successful – in sharp contrast to most other parts of the Union – and some of the best talent took up agricultural management as a career. The Agrarian Democratic Party is a UKRAINE v i n k o the largest faction in the Moldovan B u e r n r t h N o parliament today. Urbanised and heavily industrialised, ROMANIA MOLDOVA ‘Trans-Dniester Transnistria consists of five rayony (or Republic’ districts) and the city of Tiraspol. It has a N mixed population of 40.1% Moldovans Chisinau ● ● Tiraspol (the largest single ethnic group), 28.3% Tighina ● Odessa ● Ukrainians and 25.5% Russians, according to the last USSR census in 1989. Until the 0 kilometres 100 1960s Moldovans made up the absolute ● Komri UKRAINE UKRAINE majority on the left bank but their Gagauz MOLDOVA Yeri proportion declined as a result of centrally promoted immigration, particularly from ROMANIA the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist BLACK SEA BLACK SEA Republic (RSFSR), into the cities to man the factories. This population flow has increased in recent years, and many of today’s left-bank inhabitants emigrated from remote areas of Russia during the ties with Romania across the Dnestr, Sovietisation 1980s, including the PMR ‘President’, Igor was enforced with especial vigilance and vigour. Smirnov, who came from Siberia in 1985. Opposite the city of Tiraspol, where the Russians are When the Romanian army – an ally of Nazi concentrated and form a majority of the population, Germany – advanced into the Soviet Union during on the right bank of the Dnestr is the town of World War II it was wholly determined to destroy Tighina (Bendery), an important junction, linked by communism in Transnistria. Excess of zeal in rail and road bridges. Tighina, too, was pursuing this aim resulted in brutality and atrocities industrialised and populated by Russian workers which linger in the Transnistrian folk memory, following World War II, and therefore became a reinforcing fear and suspicion of Romania to this ‘left-bank’ enclave located on the right-bank of the day. river. Post-war economic policy sought to develop Politics and Ideology Western Moldova as an agricultural area, while industrialisation – often of a defence-related nature The confrontation on the Dnestr is essentially a – was concentrated mainly in Transnistria which is political struggle. In Moldovan eyes, the political said to contain some 37% of the country’s economic and ideological forces that underpinned the abortive potential. Moldovan agricultural development had coup of August 1991 – hard line communism, not, of course, been subject to the Soviet Russian nationalism, the military-industrial collectivisation disasters of the 1920s and 1930s and complex, and the determination to preserve the the local peasantry on the West bank adapted well union state – have retained a power base in the to the relatively painless collectivisation of the post- heavily militarised region and Russified industrial war period. centres on the left bank. Troops of what has now become the Operational Group of Russian Forces in As was the case throughout the Soviet Union, the the Transnistrian Region of the Republic of peasants were allowed to engage in small-scale Moldova (OGRF), are, according to the Moldovans, private enterprise farming. A successful commanded by Russian officers with a political axe entrepreneurial peasant farming outlook and to grind. According to this argument, these forces mentality survived better than elsewhere in Soviet furthered and continue to further the cause of local territory and forms an important element in the Russian, or other non-indigenous factions, in a mindset of the population in Western Moldova former Soviet republic against the properly today. Agriculture in Soviet Moldova was, on the constituted state authorities of the newly- whole, relatively efficient, productive and independent host country. In short, the Russian military actively supported an armed insurgency IBRU Boundary and Security Bulletin Spring 1997 © Articles Section 73 whose aim was to establish on the territory of an Socio-Cultural Identity internationally recognised sovereign state a Soviet- It will be evident from what has already been said style outpost, the so-called PMR, in a post-Soviet that there are a number of significant contrasts world. between the socio-cultural identity of the Russians/Russified population in Transnistria and The highly Sovietised population of Transnistria, the right bank Moldovans, though it would be quite reinforced by a Russian industrial workforce, misleading to view this contrast simply in ethnic unsurprisingly, saw matters very differently. This terms as a Russian (or Slavic) versus Moldovan community has proved suspicious of the peasant confrontation. Ethnic considerations are discussed free-market mentality of the right bank, alarmed by in the next section, while some right/left bank the restoration of the Latin alphabet, and by the contrasts relating to socio-cultural identity are listed declaration that Moldovan (i.e. Romanian) was to in the box on the previous page. be an official language of the Republic together with Russian. Similarly, the adoption of a version of The Ethnic Factor the Romanian tricolour as the Moldovan flag and The total population of Moldova is 4,367,000 of the Moldovan Supreme Soviet’s decision to replace whom 754,000 live in the capital city, Chisinau. The the Russian language version of the country’s name largest ethnic group, the Moldovans themselves, – Moldaviya – with the Romanian language version number 2,800,000 (or
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