A Sweet History in Bitter Times: Refining Sugar in the Transnistrian Borderlands (1898-2015)

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A Sweet History in Bitter Times: Refining Sugar in the Transnistrian Borderlands (1898-2015) A SWEET HISTORY IN BITTER TIMES: REFINING SUGAR IN THE TRANSNISTRIAN BORDERLANDS (1898-2015) by Alexandru Lesanu A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of George Mason University in Partial Fulfillment of The Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy History Committee: ___________________________________________ Director ___________________________________________ ___________________________________________ ___________________________________________ Department Chairperson ___________________________________________ Program Director ___________________________________________ Dean, College of Humanities and Social Sciences Date: _____________________________________ Fall Semester 2015 George Mason University Fairfax, VA A Sweet History in Bitter Times: Refining Sugar in the Transnistrian Borderlands (1898-2015) A Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at George Mason University by Alexandru Lesanu Master of Arts Central European University, Budapest, Hungary, 2005 Bachelor of Arts Low Danube University, Galati, Romania, 2003 Director: Steven Barnes, Professor Department of History and Art History Fall Semester 2015 George Mason University Fairfax, VA This work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noderivs 3.0 unported license. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS A dissertation is a long journey and it cannot be completed without the support of numerous travel companions. I would like to thank Steven Barnes, my dissertation adviser, who shared this journey from its beginning in 2008 until its end in 2015. During the journey, Steve was not only a meticulous adviser but also a valuable travel companion. Thanks to the other two members of my dissertation committee, Mills Kelly and Paula Petrik, for their precious travel advice. Among many movie and book recommendations, Mills suggested that Bridge on the Drina by Ivo Andric would be an inspired reading during my journey. In fact, the way in which Andric illustrates the major historical events through the story of a bridge inspired me to write about the major historical events of the twentieth century through the story of the Rybnitsa Sugar Factory. In Paula's class on digital history I learned that coloring Lenin's beard on a black and white photograph could be more than just a travel amusement. It can open new ways of learning and understanding history. I would not have been able to afford the expenses of this journey without the generous support from the Open Society Foundations, George Mason University and New Europe College. Open Society Foundations paved the way for a smooth start by granting a Doctoral Fellowship. During my Black Sea Link Fellowship at the New Europe College in Romania, I completed a first draft of this dissertation. A Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship from the George Mason University made it possible for me to complete this journey in a timely manner. What would a journey be without the chance encounters on the road? Thanks to Dmitrii Sevast'anov and Larisa Sevast'anova, for hosting me in Rybnitsa. Thanks to the staff of the Moldovan, Russian, Ukrainian and American archives and libraries for their assistance in dealing with the Soviet archival documents in different archival traditions. Finally, this journey would not be possible without the support of my family and friends, who always reminded me that there is a wider world out there and that there are other journeys ahead. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page List of Figures ................................................................................................................................................vi List of Terms and Abbreviations .................................................................................................................. vii Abstract ..........................................................................................................................................................ix Introduction ..................................................................................................................................................... 3 Historical and Geographical Background ................................................................................................... 9 Sugar Technology ..................................................................................................................................... 13 Historiography .......................................................................................................................................... 20 Methodology and Sources ......................................................................................................................... 38 Chapter Outline ......................................................................................................................................... 43 Chapter 1: Refining the Moldavian Peasant-Workers in the Soviet Borderlands (1918-1938) ..................... 48 Moldavian Peasant-Workers in the Soviet Borderlands ............................................................................ 51 "Affirmative Action" at All Costs ............................................................................................................. 56 Collectivization as the First Test of the Moldavian Working Class .......................................................... 60 The Water is Flowing, but the Stones Are There to Stay: Purging the Moldavian Peasant-Workers at the Soviet Periphery ........................................................................................................................................ 65 From Peasant-Workers to Stakhanovites .................................................................................................. 72 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................ 81 Chapter 2: Humans and Machines in Times of War: Between Collaboration and Resistance at the Rybnitsa Sugar Factory (1941-1944) ........................................................................................................................... 85 The Establishment of the Romanian Administration ................................................................................ 90 From the Restoration to the Evacuation of the Rybnitsa Sugar Factory ................................................... 95 Soviet Postwar Purges ............................................................................................................................. 107 Conclusion .............................................................................................................................................. 119 Chapter 3: Assembling the Enemy's Line: A Case Study of the Postwar Technological Transfer in Soviet Moldavia (1944-1952) ................................................................................................................................. 123 Models of Technological Transfer .......................................................................................................... 127 Bringing a German Sugar Factory to the Soviet Periphery ..................................................................... 133 The Traces of a Vanished Border: How Soviet Border Guards Guarded Their Land ............................. 138 Mapping the Territory, Designing the Equipment: The Assimilation of German Equipment in Rybnitsa ................................................................................................................................................................ 145 Conclusion .............................................................................................................................................. 152 iv Chapter 4: The Role of the Rybnitsa Sugar Factory in the Establishment of the Moldavian Sugar Industry (1945-1972) ................................................................................................................................................. 155 The Concept of "Technopolitical Regimes" ............................................................................................ 159 The Establishment of the Moldavian Sugar Beet Trust .......................................................................... 162 Molasses into Alcohol or Sugar: A Case Study of the Local Technopolitics ......................................... 173 Conclusion .............................................................................................................................................. 180 Chapter 5: "We Were Here From the Beginning": The Symbolic Value of Rybnitsa Sugar Factory in Soviet Moldavia ..................................................................................................................................................... 182 The Rybnitsa Sugar Factory in the Stalinist Economy............................................................................ 188 The Rybnitsa Sugar Factory as the Cradle of the Moldavian Working Class ......................................... 194 Reaching the Global Stage ...................................................................................................................... 198 From the Global to the Local: How the Rybnitsa Sugar Factory Became an Imagined Place ................ 202 "Hypernormalized Language" and Continuity in the Post-Soviet Context ............................................. 208 Conclusion .............................................................................................................................................
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