A variant based on the reformed Russian civil script, first introduced in the late 18th century, became widespread in Bessarabia after its annexation to the Russian Empire, while the rest of the Principality of Moldavia gradually switched to a Latin-based alphabet, adopted officially after its union with Wallachia that resulted in the creation of Romania.

As was the case with other Cyrillic-based languages in the Soviet Union, such as Russian, Ukrainian or Belarusian, obsolete and redundant characters were dropped in an effort to simplify orthography and boost literacy.

[3] Its re-introduction was decided by the Central Executive Committee of the Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic on May 19, 1938, albeit with an orthography more similar to standard Russian.

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".

The Russian letters Ё, Щ, and Ъ are absent from the Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet, and the former two are usually substituted with corresponding clusters ЬО and ШТ respectively.