At the time, Viaţa Basarabiei was primarily noted for rejecting the centralism of Greater Romanian governments, to which they opposed more or less vocal Bessarabian regionalist demands and a nativist ethos.

Its first issue included a foreword by Halippa, in which the latter, previously a key figure in the 1918 union with Romania and activist of the National Moldavian Party, outlined and pledged to follow a set of political and cultural ideals.

[4] According to Moldovan writer and researcher Călina Trifan, the connection between these two platforms was the theory of "national specificity" in Romanian culture, first elaborated by Viaţa Românească before World War I, and resurrected into an "evidently regionalist" ideology by Halippa and Costenco (see Poporanism).

[1][6][7] However, Viaţa Basarabiei's anti-centralist political bias, evident after Nicolai Costenco's arrival as managing editor (1934),[8] was described by various researchers as proof of extremism, bordering on Moldovenism and anti-Romanian sentiment.

[9] Moldovan essayist and critic Eugen Lungu, who suggested that such reactions may be traced back to a "parochial complex", also noted of Costenco: "He promoted [by means of Viaţa Basarabiei] a ferocious nativism, sometimes to the point of degenerating into anti-Romanianism.

[10] In his column pieces for the magazine, Costenco repeatedly stipulated the existence of a Bessarabian ethnicity, displaying "spiritual superiority" when compared to Romanians, and suggested that all of Greater Romania's historical regions had "particular, exclusive national consciousnesses".

[...] By combining [the] two cultures, the Slavic and... the Latin one, tomorrow's Bessarabia shall become, from a spiritual point of view, a chain of mountains, the tops of which will be glowing in full splendor over the times and borders.

[4][14] Literary critic Dan Mănucă notes that this cultural and political phenomenon, later exacerbated by Soviet historiography, was in fact also an answer to the Romanian government's assignment of incompetent officials at a local level.

One such case was that of Constantin Ciopraga, a literary critic who made his debut in the magazine's pages, and who, according to Mănucă, was most likely interested in "supporting Romanianism in the land between the Prut and the Dniester [that is, Bessarabia].

In articles for the magazine, Costenco offered praise to the publications issued by the nationalist thinker and historian Nicolae Iorga, from the defunct Sămănătorul (the coagulant factor of Romanian traditionalism) to the neo-Sămănătorist Cuget Clar.

[9] The magazine therefore played host to Bogdan Istru, George Meniuc and other writers who illustrated the final developments of Romania's Symbolist movement, and whose work also adopted some avant-garde characteristics.

[10] Writing for the magazine, Costenco himself offered much praise to the lyrical work of Vladimir Cavarnali, whose style was by then incorporating influences from Russian Symbolism, Expressionism or Futurism over a generic Symbolist framework.

[10] In 1939, George Meniuc used Viaţa Basarabiei to express his thoughts about the similarity between the condition of a poet and that of a shipwreck victim: "The creative soul, tormented in so many ways, finds itself in continuous disorientation.

[9] Also published in Viaţa Basarabiei, Meniuc's review of Cavarnali's 1939 volume Răsadul verde al inimii stelele de sus îl plouă ("The Heart's Green Seedbed Is Rained upon by the Stars Above") expressed an enthusiasm similar to Costenco's.

[20] According to Alina Ciobanu-Tofan, "for 13 years, [Viaţa Basarabiei] has had a fruitful activity (without equivalent in its epoch) in the area of Romanian culture in Bessarabia, discovering talents, generating and propagating unprecedented values".

[4] In addition to chronicling Bessarabian and nationwide developments, Viaţa Basarabiei was interested in the life of Romanian-speakers within the Soviet Union, particularly those in the neighboring Moldavian ASSR (Transnistria), where, due to permanent border tensions, cultural contacts had been much reduced.

[13] The identification of the regionalist venue with nationalism and fascism, centered on allegations about Halippa and Meniuc's wartime attitudes, was notably argued by communist poet Emilian Bucov.

After all, all Bessarabian people know that Viaţa Basarabiei magazine has been promoting a shameless campaign, riddled with lies and innuendo, against the Land of the Soviets, against the revolutionary communist movement in Bessarabia.

[30] The first issues listed as the editorial staff writers from Moldova (Alexandru Burlacu, Emilian Galaicu-Păun, Ion Hadârcă, Dumitru-Dan Maxim) and Romania (Ana Blandiana, Constantin Ciopraga, Victor Crăciun, Eugen Simion).

[31] Other noted contributors were Romanian critic Eugen Uricaru, Bessarabian-born novelist Paul Goma (who serialized here his narrative, also titled Basarabia),[31] and Moldovan author Andrei Strâmbeanu.

[33] Ungureanu also opines that, among this section of the Moldovan media, Viaţa Basarabiei and Literatura şi Arta stand out for their conservative approach to publishing, as opposed to the more modern Contrafort, Revista Sud-Est and Semn.

[34] The same dichotomy was stated by writer Maria Şleahtiţchi, according to whom the Moldovan publishing industry is essentially divided between journals with an antiquated patriotic Romanian discourse and venues better adapted to the modern scene.