Greater Moldova
Initial plans were drafted by Ana Pauker and Gherasim Rudi, who wanted Soviet Moldavia (already comprising most of Bessarabia) enlarged westward toward the Siret, with Iași for its capital; their project was vetoed by Joseph Stalin.
The Principality of Moldavia was founded in the 14th century after nobles from the neighboring voivodeship at Maramureș (notably Bogdan I and Dragoș) succeeded in creating an autonomous and later independent polity in areas claimed by the Kingdom of Hungary.
As reported by Austrian diplomat Thugut de Paula, "the Moldavians and all other of Ghica's creatures [...] apply all their zeal to depicting the voluntary cession of such a rich area of the country as an act of extraordinary weakness".
However, the circumstances of Russian rule and the effective partition were seen as unacceptable by various boyar delegates, including the likes of Ioniță Sion and Grigorașcu Sturdza, who pleaded for protection by either the French Empire or Austria.
[18] The cause of Moldavian statehood was also embraced by Simion Bărnuțiu, who "supported Union as a confederation, with Moldavia as a distinct juridical person, with her own ancient rights, her history, her inalienable demands on Bukovina and Bessarabia".
A manuscript left by the Bukovinian folklorist Simion Florea Marian, who died in 1907, noted that: "cut off from Moldavia, like a daughter from her mother, [Bukovina] sobs over her torments.
"[25] In Bessarabia, cultural isolation gave way to Russification—as noted in 1888 by the Greco-Bessarabian merchant Pericles Rodocanachi, "not since 1812 have we witnessed such brutal efforts to Russianize Romanian peasants from this part of Moldavia that has been kidnapped by the Moskals".
[34] During these transformations, the Bukovinian General Council received a three-man Bessarabian delegation, headed by Ion Pelivan, which alternated messages of Romanian brotherhood and Greater Moldavian resurgence.
Quoting from Eminescu's nationalist poem Doina, Cazacliu expressed the vision of Stephen the Great returning from his grave to bring about unity between the "young lads of Bukovina and Bessarabia", who had been caught up in a war that required them to shoot each other.
[35] The union resolution, read out by Iancu Flondor on 28 November 1918, spoke of both a reunification with "Stephen's Moldavia" and a larger design for bringing together "all the Romanian lands [...] into one national unitary state".
At the time, Pușcariu notes, the League's A. C. Cuza "envisaged regionalist politics, in order to resuscitate, within unified Romania, a Moldavia enlarged by the addition of Bessarabia and Bukovina.
[68] This trend was first encouraged by Camenca native Artiom Lazarev as Minister of Education (1947–1951) and of Culture (1953–1963)—his contribution included commissioning the Alley of Classics complex in Chișinău, which displays the busts of Creangă, Alecsandri, Eminescu, and Dimitrie Cantemir.
Communist censorship intervened shortly after, to curb any mention of Bessarabia in the popular history journal, Magazin Istoric; in December 1967, editors had to remove a reference to "the whole of Moldavia", which had been written into an article about Stephen the Great.
[73] During the early 1970s, Ceaușescu encouraged various exceptions to this norm: he allowed references to the ancient Moldavian borders in a historical film about Dimitrie Cantemir, and quipped that "we should send it to Brezhnev"; also then, the Romanian Central Committee protested again any Soviet description of Eminescu as a "Moldovan poet".
He repeated this claim in the 1980s, when he openly rejected standard Soviet historiography by noting that "there was nothing progressive" in the original Russian annexation, by which "the Moldavian State and people found themselves artificially dismembered".
As noted by diplomatic historian Ileana Racheru, Moldova's first President, Mircea Snegur (1990–1997), favored a "moderate pragmatic" approach to the issue of Moldovan identity in relation to both Romania and historical Moldavia.
[84] Moldova–Romania relations were especially warm at that stage, as Snegur maintained personal contacts with Ion Iliescu, the President of Romania, who likewise favored a degree of continuity with the Soviet era.
A Romanian opposition journalist, Nicolae Prelipceanu, cautioned in May 1992 that such fondness for Snegur could result in Moldovan–Romanian reunification as a post-Soviet "Greater Moldova", absorbing Romania itself into the Commonwealth of Independent States.
"[82] In July 1994, Moldovan journalist Nicolae Roșca, who had previously worked in Romania, declared that the Romanian state was on the verge of collapsing, and that "Bessarabia now has for a mission the recovery of its lost territories".
[89] In March 1996, Vasile Matei of the National Unity Party, who sat on the Romanian Parliament's oversight commission for the Intelligence Service, also raised alarm about the Agrarianists' agenda.
[90] Reportedly, during that same period, Agrarianist Premier Andrei Sangheli ordered postal stationery with "the map of Greater Moldova [...] superimposed with the current arms of the Moldovan Republic.
[92] A historian linked to Lucinschi and the Agrarianists, Petre P. Moldovan, went from arguing that Russia should have annexed both halves of the Moldavian Principality to proposing that Moldova and Romanian Moldavia had vastly different historical experiences and economic interests, which required them to be neatly separated from each other.
His move caused outrage among mainstream politicians; in Parliament, Dumitru Mugurel Vintilă alleged that Simirad's movement was a front for the KGB and a vehicle for Greater Moldavian secession.
On the Romanian side, this effort involved Nicolae Ivanciu of Iași County, who went public with his opposition to the Greater Moldavian project—after having allegedly been proposed a political union by his colleagues in Căușeni District.
[96] In 2002, Iurie Roșca and his Moldovan Christian Democrats, who stood in opposition to Voronin, alternatively proposed fusing the two sides of ancient Moldavia into a single entity, which would then be included into a federal Romania.
Their project caused indignation in Romanian circles, for seemingly questioning the centralizing basis of Romania; it did however win some support from members of the Christian Democratic National Peasants' Party.
[98] Historian Dorin Cimpoeșu comments that the PCRM absorbed Greater Moldovanists into its ranks, within a general trend which upheld "today's Republic of Moldova as the successor to historical Moldavia."
He argued that Ukraine should take over breakaway Transnistria, and that Moldova should receive Ukrainian Bukovinian and north-Bessarabian raions largely peopled by Romanians and self-declared Moldovans—specifically Hertsa, Hlyboka, Novoselytsia and Storozhynets.
[104] Dodon's stance sparked controversy in Romania, with a former Foreign Minister, Titus Corlățean, retorting that Romanians should instead present Moldovans with the option of "reunifying Greater Moldavia, but within our own country's borders.
Tanasă views Moldovan irrendentism as spontaneous and reactive; he also notes its "weak points which put it at a significant disadvantage", including the fact that all three former Moldavian princely capitals are currently located within Romania's borders.
