Book Reviews

Matthew H. Ciscel, The Language of the Moldovans: Romania, Russia, and Identity in an Ex-Soviet Republic. Lanham MD: Lexington Books, 2007. xiii + 171 pp.

Reviewed by Paul E. Michelson, Huntington University

“Language use is universally social and political,” the author of this interesting and useful monograph writes. “The two goals of this book are to describe the language situation in the post-Soviet Republic of Moldova and to explain this situation as the result of complex interaction between competing linguistic and social identities. Some Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/23/3/246/1955773/jcws_r_01035.pdf by guest on 01 October 2021 of the variables are historical, social, psychological, and economic, but together they contribute to a sociolinguistic dynamic that is unique to the Moldovans” (p. 47). Even with the passage of time since the book was published, Ciscel is successful in achieving these goals, and the reader will come away with a much fuller comprehen- sion of why things evolved as they did during the first two decades of post-Soviet Moldova. Ciscel’s first chapter surveys the tortuous history of what today is the Republic of Moldova, pointing out that Ottoman and Russian influences, though powerful, were never quite successful in stamping out the region’s identification with the Ro- manians on the other side of the Prut River. On the other hand, when Moldova (or Bessarabia) became part of the Romanian state in the twentieth century through the intervention of Joseph Stalin, mismanagement and non-Romanian domination of the cities and towns of Moldova left the region poorly integrated. As a result, Moldova, in common with other imperial borderlands, is multiethnic and multilingual, and national/linguistic identities were and still are much debated and in doubt. The con- sequence was and is a continuing identity crisis for ethnic Romanians. Discussion of that crisis begins in Chapter 2. Romanians in Moldova, though nearly two thirds of the population (more than three quarters if Transnistria is excluded), were hopelessly divided over three key questions: (1) the relationship of their language to Romanian (is it Romanian, a dialect of Romanian, or a separate Romance language?); (2) the political status of Moldova (should it be independent but tied to Russia, independent but without any particular ties to Russia, or united with Romania?); and (3) what languages should be official in Moldova (Romanian/Moldovan only, both Romanian and Russian, or even Russian only?). The fact that the Communists dominated Moldovan politics in the first decade of the 21st century to the detriment of pro-unification Romanians owed precisely to this identity crisis. The crisis was reinforced by the 1994 constitution, which made Ro- manian the national language but called it Moldovan (a status that remained in effect until late 2013, when the Constitutional Court ruled that “Romanian,” as stipulated in the country’s 1991 declaration of independence, had to take precedence). Whether “Moldovan” should be a separate language from Romanian, and whether “Moldovan” history and Romanian history should be seen as identical were sticking points in the sociopolitical dialogue of Moldova during the first quarter century after the end of the USSR.

246 Book Reviews

Chapter 3 examines the economic status of Moldova in the early 21st century, analyzes print media, and discusses the social and linguistic identities that emerged from such study. Ciscel distinguishes four identity groups in Moldovan society af- ter the disintegration of the Soviet Union: extremely pro-Romanian, moderately pro- Romanian, moderately pro-Russian, and extremely pro-Russian. This is mirrored in his review of the press. The heart of the book deals with surveys Ciscel conducted in 2001 and 2003 and with the stories of representative students at the State Univer- sity of Moldova. Although he recognizes that these samples are not extensive enough to achieve statistical validity, Ciscel compensates for this by mixing quantitative and Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/23/3/246/1955773/jcws_r_01035.pdf by guest on 01 October 2021 qualitative approaches. In the end, this “triangulation” provides some degree of valida- tion for his findings, showing how language identities interacted in early post-Soviet Moldova and how these were affected by social identity. Ciscel argues that most Moldovans are pragmatic moderates. This might bode well for the future, but, on the other hand, both the extremely pro-Romanian and the extremely pro-Russian groups are in many ways still irreconcilable. The Romani- ans have the numbers, but the Russophones have the power and status to prevent the Romanians from achieving all of their goals. In Chapter 4, Ciscel writes, “If history and politics reflect the elite competition among divergent social identity categories, the attitudes, beliefs, and rankings are the currency in which their values are nego- tiated among both the elite and common actors in the identity market of daily na- tional life” (p. 95). A major emphasis of the chapter is a survey of these values and attitudes. This is followed by a chapter that measures multilingual proficiency in his sur- vey/interview samples. His research shows, among other things, that Russian influence in the region persisted into the 21st century in both status and language practice; so- cial identities in the Republic of Moldova are dynamic in character while socially constructed; language plays the most prominent role in post-Soviet debate and in the priorities of individuals; the country’s social identity crisis—in which Western or Ro- manian identity is seen as clashing with an Eastern or Moldovan/Russian identity—is related to economics; and the past continues to be prologue despite the end of empire in the region. Ciscel believes that the future of language issues in Moldova is “neither fantas- tic nor bleak. Neither the nostalgic, relatively pro-Russian policies of the Commu- nist party nor the idealistic, pro-Romanian challenges from the minority Christian Democrats seem to spark much enthusiasm among the majority of Moldovans. Al- though the Moldovan national identity seems to have consolidated into a reality, the meaning of this identity will remain uncertain as long as it rests on the foundation of an uncertain linguistic identity, which is far from resolution” (p. 144). The future prospects for the Republic of Moldova appear brighter now than when Ciscel was writing. He foresaw two possibilities: one in which a “Moldovan identity” triumphs; and one in which a Romanian identity wins out. In the former case, Russian domination would continue. In the latter case, Russophones would have to shift to a Romanian bilingualism that they had long resisted.

247 Book Reviews

There is little to quibble with in this study, even if it needs updating after some fourteen years. Ciscel is forthcoming about weaknesses in his approach, fair in his analysis, and modest about his conclusions. In the wake of the Communists’ downfall after the 2014 election, the country’s situation has changed considerably, but Ciscel’s analysis stands as a valuable overview of Moldova’s first two decades. His analysis of the linguistic debates and identity in the Republic of Moldova during that period offers a reliable and illuminating perspective.

✣✣✣ Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/23/3/246/1955773/jcws_r_01035.pdf by guest on 01 October 2021

Claudio Petruccioli, Rendiconto: La sinistra italiana dal Pci a oggi. Milan: La nave di Teseo, 2020. 346 pp. €9.99 (digital edition).

Reviewed by Richard Drake, University of Montana

Claudio Petruccioli, a leading Communist in late Cold War Italy, first published this political memoir in 2001 about the demise ten years earlier of the Italian Communist Party (PCI) and the creation of its successor, the Partito Democratico della Sinistra (PDS). In a second edition appearing in 2020, he included a new introduction and concluding chapter to take account of recent developments on the post-Communist left. The book is being hailed in Italy as an outstanding history of the forces and personalities responsible for the left’s failure to find a way forward after the end of the Cold War. The original edition recounted how PCI leaders had reacted to events from the opening of the Berlin Wall in 1989 to the disintegration of Italy’s Cold War political system in the watershed elections of 1994. The PCI, which at its founding in 1921 had taken its bearings from the Bolsheviks’ rise to power, collapsed at the end of the Cold War in 1991. Petruccioli, a protagonist in the story he tells, wanted the Communists to embrace the cause of democratic socialism. The opening chapters describe a transition that took place in the early 1990s amid bitter polemics among rival factions. At a 1991 PCI conference in Rimini, the majority formed the PDS. Under the leadership of Armando Cossutta, however, one-third of the conference members decided to create their own party, the Rifondazione Comunista (RC), destined with its hammer-and- sickle standard to make little headway in Italian politics. Even after the RC secession, the PDS remained prey to internal dissen- sion. Petruccioli exhaustively analyzes the struggle between the last PCI secretary and founding PDS secretary, Achille Occhetto, and his chief antagonist, Massimo D’Alema. Against D’Alema’s vehement opposition, Occhetto took the dramatic step in 1993 of supporting the technical government of Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, a former governor of the Bank of Italy and president of the National Bureau of Exchange. D’Alema criticized what he called Ciampi’s slighting way of dealing with the PDS. At a deeper level of concern for anyone like D’Alema who was seeking to maintain continuity between the PCI and the PDS, a political alliance with the banks had an

248