Controversy over ethnic and linguistic identity in Moldova
The officially sanctioned distinction between Moldovans and Romanians has been criticized by some members of the scientific community within Moldova,[6][7][8][9][10] and it has raised protests from certain segments of the population, especially intellectuals and students, at their turn inspired by several political forces.
Kolstø et al. concluded that "Whatever the Romanian-speaking population of Moldavia used to regard themselves in the interwar period, the vast majority of them have now internalized a Moldovan ethnic identity."
The poll also shows that, compared to the national average (25%), people are more likely to perceive the two identities as the same or very similar if they are young (33%), are native speakers of Romanian (30%), have higher education (36%) or reside in urban areas (30%), especially in the capital city (42%).
[19] In March 2023, the Parliament of Moldova approved a law referring to the national language as Romanian in all legislative texts and the constitution, making the name Moldovan obsolete.
For example, cabbage, drill and watermelon are respectively "curechi", "sfredel" and "harbuz" in both the Republic of Moldova and the Romanian part of Moldavia, but their synonyms "varză", "burghiu" and "pepene" are preferred in Wallachia.
In November that year, the Moldovan parliament passed a law which allowed dual citizenship; this applied to other countries besides Romania, particularly Russia and Ukraine.
On April 27, 2010, the Grand Chamber of the EHCR decided the ban was "disproportionate with the government’s purpose of ensuring loyalty" of its public servants and members of parliament.
Mircea Snegur, the first Moldovan President (1992–1996), a somewhat versatile supporter of the common Romanian-Moldovan ethnic and linguistic identity: "În suflet eram (și sunt) mai român decât mulți dintre învinuitori."
S-o numești română înseamnă să înșeli istoria și să-ți nedreptățești propria mamă.»[42] "Moldovan is in fact the mother of the Romanian language.
Mihai Ghimpu, speaker of the Moldovan Parliament and interim president (2009–2010), a staunch supporter of the common Romanian-Moldovan ethnic identity: "Dar ce am câștigat având la conducere oameni care știau că limba e română și că noi suntem români, dar au recunoscut acest adevăr doar după ce au plecat de la guvernare?
[citation needed] Dimitrie Cantemir (1673–1723), Prince of Moldavia and member of the Royal Academy of Berlin, wrote a history book called Hronicul vechimei a Romano-Moldo-Vlahilor (Chronicle of the Ancientness of the Romanian-Moldavian-Vlachs).
[49] A chronicler and mercenary from Verona, Alessandro Guagnini (1538–1614), traveled twice in Moldavia and helped Despot Vodă (Ioan Iacob Heraclid) gain the throne in 1563.
[51] Also, according to these sources, the Slav neighbours called Moldovans "Vlachs" or "Volokhs", a term equally used to refer to all the Romance speakers from Wallachia, Transylvania, and the Balkan peninsula.
[52] Nicolaus Olahus (1493–1568), prominent humanist, writes in Hungaria et Attila that the Moldavians have the same language, rituals and religion as the Wallachians and that the only way to distinguish them is by their clothes.
[53] Thomas Thornton (1762–1814) wrote a book in 1807 about his numerous travels inside the Ottoman Empire and says that the Wallachian and Moldavian peasants call themselves "Rumun, or Roman", to distinguish themselves from boyars (local nobles), and that their language is a corrupt Latin.
The proposed independent state, named Dacia, would have contained Moldavia, Bessarabia and Wallachia, but Catherine wished it under Russian influence as it was presented in the so-called "Greek Project".
[63] Also, the memoirs of Sir James Porter (1720–1786), British diplomat, ambassador to the Sublime Porte in Istanbul from 1747 to 1762, mentions that, inside the Ottoman Empire, next in number to the Slavonians are the Rumelians or Romani, to whom the Moldavians and Wallachians belong, who call themselves Rumuryi.
[64] In 1812, the eastern part of the Principality of Moldavia, called Bessarabia, which includes the current territory of Republic of Moldova (except for Transnistria) was ceded by the Ottomans to the Russian empire.
The young boyars from Moldavia and Wallachia educated in western universities returned home with ambitious political goals to modernize their countries, and sought to accomplish the ideal of a unified Romanian nation state.
One important step was achieved in 1859, in a favorable international context, with the election of Alexandru Ioan Cuza as a common ruler of the autonomous principalities of Wallachia and (western) Moldavia.
The creation of a standardized Romanian language and orthography, the adoption of the Roman alphabet to replace the older Cyrillic were also important elements of the national project.
As Romanian politician Take Ionescu noted at the time, "the Romanian landlords were Russified through a policy of cooptation, the government allowing them to maintain leading positions in the administration of the province, whereas the peasantry was indifferent to the national problem: there were no schools for de-nationalization, and, although the church service was held in Russian, this was actually of little significance"[69][70] Furthermore, as University of Bucharest lecturer Cristina Petrescu noted, Bessarabia missed "the reforms aimed at transforming the two united principalities [Wallachia and Moldavia] into a modern state"[69][71] Irina Livezeanu claims that, moreover, at the beginning of the 20th century, peasants in all regions of the former principality of Moldavia were more likely to identify as Moldavians than the inhabitants of the cities.
US historian Charles Upson Clark notes that several Bessarabian ministers, Codreanu, Pelivan and Secara, and the Russian commander-in-chief Shcherbachev had asked for its intervention to maintain order.
[77] However, he adds that, at the beginning, the intervention had "roused great resentment among those who still clung to the hope of a Bessarabian state within the Russian Federated Republic" such as Ion Inculeț, president of Sfatul Țării and prime-minister Pantelimon Erhan who initially demanded the prompt withdrawal of the Romanian troops to avoid a civil war.
[77] Given the complex circumstances, some scholars such as Cristina Petrescu and US historian Charles King considered controversial the Bessarabian vote in favor of the union with Romania.
[81] Similarly, Bernard Newman, who traveled by bike in the whole of Greater Romania, claimed there is little doubt that the vote represented the prevailing wish in Bessarabia and that the events leading to the unification indicate there was no question of a "seizure", but a voluntary act on the part of its people.
The resistance from the Moldovan population was so large that Romanian authorities instated a "state of siege" in Moldova between 1918 and 1928, restricting civil rights, giving law enforcements additional power and maintaining military presence in the region.
[90] Based on the stories told by a group of Bessarabians from the villages of the Bălți County, who, notably, chose to move to Romania rather than live under the Soviet regime, Cristina Petrescu suggests that Bessarabia seems to be the only region of Greater Romania where the central authorities did not succeed "in integrating their own coethnics", most of whom "did not even begin to consider themselves part of the Romanian nation, going beyond their allegiance to regional and local ties".
The Soviet authorities took several steps to emphasize the distinction between the Moldovans and the Romanians, at times using the physical elimination of pan-Romanian supporters, deemed as "enemies of the people".
In 1965, the demands of the 3rd Congress of Writers of Soviet Moldavia were rejected by the leadership of the Communist Party, the replacement being deemed "contrary to the interests of the Moldavian people and not reflecting its aspirations and hopes".
