The Making of Ethnicity in Southern Bessarabia: Tracing the histories of an ambiguous concept in a contested land Dissertation Zur Erlangung des Doktorgrades der Philosophie (Dr. phil.) vorgelegt der Philosophischen Fakultät I Sozialwissenschaften und historische Kulturwissenschaften der Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, von Herrn Simon Schlegel geb. am 23. April 1983 in Rorschach (Schweiz) Datum der Verteidigung 26. Mai 2016 Gutachter: PD Dr. phil. habil. Dittmar Schorkowitz, Dr. Deema Kaneff, Prof. Dr. Gabriela Lehmann-Carli Contents Deutsche Zusammenfassung ...................................................................................................................................... iii 1. Introduction .............................................................................................................................................................. 1 1.1. Questions and hypotheses ......................................................................................................................... 4 1.2. History and anthropology, some methodological implications ................................................. 6 1.3. Locating the field site and choosing a name for it ........................................................................ 11 1.4. A brief historical outline .......................................................................................................................... 17 1.5. Ethnicity, natsional’nost’, and nationality: definitions and translations ............................. 22 1.6. Thesis structure .......................................................................................................................................... 25 2. From horseback to the office – the Russian administration in Bessarabia and its role in creating ethnic distinctions 1812-1918 ............................................................................................................... 27 2.1. The state’s hunger for tax and men .................................................................................................... 28 2.2. Colonists out of the state’s sight ........................................................................................................... 32 2.3. Keep it separate, keep it simple ........................................................................................................... 35 2.4. Criminalizing the undocumented ........................................................................................................ 44 2.5. Bureaucracy evolving: the church gives way to the state ......................................................... 45 2.6. The categories of the census taker and the ethnographer ........................................................ 48 2.7. The category of ethnicity in revolutionary minds ........................................................................ 59 2.8. Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................................... 61 3. Persuasion and paranoia - Romania’s strained relations with Bessarabia’s ethnic minorities 1918-44 ............................................................................................................................................................................. 63 3.1. Newcomer elites in a hostile land ....................................................................................................... 66 3.2. Spying on minorities ................................................................................................................................. 69 3.3. Counting and categorizing minorities ............................................................................................... 71 3.4. Violence, ethnicity, and trust ................................................................................................................. 77 3.5. Correcting history’s gaffes ...................................................................................................................... 85 3.6. Ethnicity and purity - metaphors from medicine ......................................................................... 87 3.7. Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................................... 89 4. Ethnic minorities and Soviet newcomers: overcoming cultural differences .............................. 91 4.1. Fateful ethnicity .......................................................................................................................................... 92 4.2. The stewards of a new model state .................................................................................................... 97 4.3. Ethnicity performed in public ............................................................................................................. 101 4.4. Soviet education and the friendship of peoples .......................................................................... 106 4.5. Stagnation and revived ethnic consciousness .............................................................................. 113 4.6. Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................... 119 5. Clientelism, post-soviet instability, and the persistence of ethnic boundaries ........................ 121 5.1. The Power of benefaction ..................................................................................................................... 124 5.2. The award as a currency of clientelistic exchange ..................................................................... 129 5.3. The roots of post-soviet clientelism in ethnic and non-ethnic networks ......................... 135 5.4. Ethnicity in local politics: some strategies .................................................................................... 138 5.5. Political representation and the urge to choose a clear-cut ethnic identity .................... 142 5.6. Dealing with the contradiction: when clear-cut boundaries encounter fuzzy identities ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………147 5.7. Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................... 151 6. The conceptualization of ethnicity according to the needs of Soviet administrators ........... 153 6.1. Ethnicity and ethnos: differing paradigms and the historical preconditions giving rise to them ........................................................................................................................................................................ 156 6.2. Who and what determines ethnic affiliation? .............................................................................. 161 6.3. How to grasp the inside perspective ................................................................................................ 163 6.4. State-approved concepts of ethnicity in post-war Soviet academia ................................... 165 6.5. Gut feeling and folk theories of ethnicity ....................................................................................... 171 6.6. Grand scheme planning and the “primordial trap” .................................................................... 176 6.7. Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................... 180 7. Representing the past, shaping the present ........................................................................................... 183 7.1. Ukraine’s past vs. Ukraine’s history ................................................................................................. 183 7.2. Historical knowledge to the rural masses...................................................................................... 188 7.3. The periphery gets its own history ................................................................................................... 193 7.4. The genesis of groups and group identities .................................................................................. 198 7.5. Controlling images of the past ............................................................................................................ 203 7.6. Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................... 210 8. The narratives and techniques that maintain ethnic boundaries .................................................. 213 8.1. Pure and impure language ................................................................................................................... 214 8.2. Religion’s ambiguous role in marking ethnicity .......................................................................... 220 8.3. Common historical experience and collective memory ........................................................... 224 8.4. Taste for song and dance ...................................................................................................................... 231 8.5. A new biological code for ethnic belonging ................................................................................... 236 8.6. Generalizing the inside, omitting the outside ..............................................................................