The Moldovans: Romania, Russia, and the Politics of Culture

by Charles King

Throughout the past two centuries, Moldova was the object of a variety of culture-building efforts from Russian, Romanian, and Soviet influences before emerging as an independent state in 1991. The author •Highlights the political uses of culture—the ways in which language, history, and identity can be manipulated by political elites
•Examines why some attempts to mold identity succeed where others fail
•Reveals why, in the case of Moldova, a project of identity construction succeeded in creating a state but failed to make an independent nation

Genres: History, Russia, Nonfiction, Politics, Romania, Sociology, European History

303 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Charles King is a New York Times-bestselling author and a professor at Georgetown University. His books include EVERY VALLEY (2024), on the making of Handel's Messiah, which was a New York Times Notable Book; GODS OF THE UPPER AIR (2019), on the reinvention of race and gender in the early twentieth century, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and winner of the Francis Parkman Prize and the Anisfield-Wolf Award; MIDNIGHT AT THE PERA PALACE (2014), on the birth of modern Istanbul, which was the inspiration for a Netflix series of the same name; and ODESSA (2011), winner of a National Jewish Book Award.

Reviews

[Cărăşălu · Rating 3 out of 5]

Surprisingly balanced book on the topic, which means it will leave most parties unsatisfied (pan-Romanians and Moldovanists alike). The author doesn't focus on searching for an absolute answer - ”are Moldovans Romanians or something different” and actually implies throughout the book that there is no such definite answer.

Instead he shows how borders, names and labels varied over the years and focuses on tsarist, Romanian and Soviet cultural policies: Romanization, Russification, indigenization, Moldovenization, Sovietization. All these policies aimed at cultural engineering or nation building were more often than not politically or economically motivated, pursued by elites removed from the targets of their policies - the majority of the population. As such, they usually failed, the results were always different from the expectations and this may account for the current identity dilemmas of the Moldovans.

Although as a Moldovan I'm familiar with most of this stuff, King's account is different from the current pro-Romanian curriculum taught in schools, where the Soviet and tsarist times are characterized exclusively by Russification and denationalization. In fact, King shows, some Soviet policies actually did the contrary and very often ”Moldovenization” was so only in name, while in truth it meant bridging the gap between the Moldovan language and the standard literary Romanian.

It may be a little boring for both those already familiar with topic and it might not interest many others (most people on this planet do not know wtf is Moldova), but it is a good solid read for the curious or for those who want a non-partisan recap on the subject.

Again, the book doesn't focus on who the Moldovans are or are not, but on the succession of policies trying to make them be this or that and the reasons why these policies failed.

[Alexandru · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good attempt to present the issues surrounding the failed state of Republic of Moldova. The author is very neutral that is good overall, although he is overdoing it in a number of occasions and as a result a fear of telling the facts can be seen. And it is not the author bad faith or intent, it is largely due to the fact that the book was written almost twenty years ago and many new facts surfaced regarding what was happening during the collapse of the USSR and how thing evolved around Moldova. Some of the "errors" that can be seen is related to Transnistria and the Russian way of creating so-called ethnic tensions - the Ukrainian experience in Crimea and Donetsk/Lugansk regions is a good example of that. A similar idea applies to Gagauzia that after becoming autonomous is basically loosing its native language and becoming more of another region willing to join Russia. The 2005 Kozak memorandum expressed very clearly the idea that stayed behind the creation of all these hot spots in Moldova - a federation with three republics where foreign policy would be decided by the Russian controlled republics and the reorganisation of the Russian troops into a Russia military base, which would have a international legal status. Another mistake is the idea of the author that Romania-phobia between Moldovan is caused by the misbehavior of Romanian authorities in 1918, it is more driven by Russian media that is still more popular and having a strong influence in Moldova.

As a conclusion the book is a good starting point in understanding what happens to Moldova, but the book needs an update in order to cover the events after 2000.

[Jurjen Abbes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Moldova - the graveyard of nation-builders.

Those words might have been an alternative title to this great book. It discusses how all the powers to rule over Moldova (Russia, Romania, the Soviet Union, and the Republic of Moldova) attempted to forge a Moldovan nation, and failed in the process. The result is a multiethnic, multilingual, multicultural state that looks towards many directions for its position on the world map, but rarely towards itself.

'The Moldovans' taught me that this country is more than a disadvantaged offshoot of the Romanian nation - forming, both because and in spite of the many failed Moldovas, a state with a national identity worth considering.

I encountered two downsides of this book. The first: I was missing some deeper Romanian, Russian and Ukrainian perspectives on how related or foreign Moldova was to thém. Surely, a nation is defined by more than just the views of the people who are part of it.

The second: I wish I had read this before I went to Moldova.

[Nicholas Whyte]

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1505396.html

A decade after it was published, this remains the most serious examination of the identity of the people(s) of Moldova, the little-known ex-Soviet republic wedged between Romania and Ukraine, and of its breakaway Transdniestria region, a thin strip along the Ukrainian border. Most of the territory of what is now Moldova, lying between the rivers Prut and Dniester, was in the old territory known as Bessarabia, annexed by the Russian Empire in 1812 and then by the much enlarged Kingdom of Romania in 1918, and then by the Soviet Union in 1940, reclaimed by Romania in 1941 and finally again by the Soviets in 1944. (Transdniestria's history is linked but more complicated.) The majority of the population speaks a language described as Moldovan, but now acknowledged to be identical to Romanian; the cities and town, however, have tended to be concentrations of Russians, Ukrainians, and in earlier periods Jews. In the south of the country there are large districts where the local language is either Bulgarian or Gagauz, which is related to Turkish.

The subject of King's book is the story of how and to what extent a separate Moldovan consciousness has developed, even though the attempts to produce a separate language failed. The Soviet Union attempted to establish Moldovan, written in the Cyrillic alphabet, as a literary standard, and it simply didn't work; Romanian orthography is not easily adapted to Cyrillic (a memorable example is the case of Mr Mîţă, whose six children were all given different Cyrillic surnames by the hospital officials filling out their birth certificates). But at the same time, accepting the Romanian literary standard for their language did not mean seeking Romanian unification for their territory, even before taking into consideration the views of the large percentage of non-Romanian speakers in the population.

(It's an interesting comment on the state of such debates in Eastern Europe that so many observers thought - and some still think - that unification with Romania is inevitable. In Belgium, Walloons and Flemings use the literary standard languages of our neighbours without becoming French or Dutch, and likewise in Switzerland. The Kosovars have no hesitation about describing themselves as Albanian, but like the Moldovans are more than wary of unification with their neighbours. Ireland's use of English is slightly different because of the survival of an indigenous and separate language; while the Ulster Scots boondoggle is likely to go the way of Soviet Moldavian. But it's also striking that the languages formerly known as Serbo-Croat have established themselves rather more credibly, even if Serbs, Croats, Bosnians and Montenegrins remain entirely able to understand each other.)

Transdniestria, Moldova's separatist region, is a different matter. Although its sympathisers like to portray the issue as an ethnic one between the Slavic loyalties of the Transdniestrians and the supposed Romanian revanchism of Chişinău, thus fitting the same template as Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Nagorno-Karabakh, it's actually more a case of the local elite, who used to run things - none of the top brass in the Communist Party was from the Bessarabian side of the river before 1989 - refusing to accept the new state of affairs post-independence. Unlike the leaders of Katanga or Biafra, they won the war, but have yet to win the peace (and indeed the vibes from Moscow lately cannot be terribly encouraging for Tiraspol). The one serious ethnic issue in Moldova was the problem of the Gagauz, but they have settled for local autonomy; their slightly more numerous Bulgarian neighbours have accepted integration (the prime minister before last was from their ranks).

I produced three reports on Moldova in my time at ICG, and apart from them (and Tony Hawks' Playing the Moldovans at Tennis) there's not a lot out there; and King's book is still the taproot for most analysis of the country. But it is a very interesting and somewhat peculiar story in its own right, as a matter of general interest.

[Mikael Johnsen · Rating 3 out of 5]

An insightful and balanced exploration of Moldova’s tangled history and identity. Rather than giving a simple answer to the question of “who the Moldovans are,” King examines the long series of projects — Romanianization, Russification, Soviet “Moldovenization” — where elites repeatedly tried to engineer a national identity from above.
One of the most compelling aspects of the book is how it subtly echoes Ernest Gellner’s idea that nations are often “invented” through cultural engineering. In Moldova’s case, successive powers attempted to shape language, history, and symbols to fit their political goals — yet these efforts frequently failed, leaving behind a society that is multilingual, multiethnic, and deeply complex.
King avoids taking sides and instead reveals how Moldova became a space where competing visions of identity clashed and overlapped. The result is a book that not only documents Moldova’s past but also offers broader insights into why some nation-building projects succeed while others falter. A rich, thoughtful read for anyone interested in the politics of identity and culture in Eastern Europe.

[Gwan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of the finer details of Moldovan politics dragged a bit for me, and I would have welcomed a longer introduction to the pre-19th century history of the country/region. However, it was still a useful introduction to the country's politics, history and culture and a primer on how past events continue to shape issues such as the Transnistrian conflict, language policies, international relations etc. it would also be interesting to anyone with a more general interest in the relationship between language and culture or in ethnic/linguistic divides, especially in the post-Soviet context. Essentially, I gave it three stars because it didn't exactly correspond to what I was looking for (to wit: a general history of Moldova), but there's not much to pick from in English, unfortunately. I'm sure the quality of the scholarship and the writing deserve 4+.

[Totochelamouche · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is about the malleability of national identity - the degree to which individuals' conceptions of self and community can be changed through education, cultural policy, and other forms of state intervention.

Already under Ştefan's son, Bogdan III, Moldova began paying an annual tribute of 4,000 pieces of gold, 40 horses, and 24 falcons to the sultan, figures that rose and fell according to the power of Moldovan nobles to resist the Turks.

Romanian newspapers began to publish poems and other works by Moldovan writers such as Grigore Vieru and Leonida Lari, individuals who had been central to the cultural movement of the late 1980s but whose work had long been prohibited in Romania.

On May 6, 1990, a massive demonstration - known as the "Bridge of Flowers" (Podul de Flori) - took place along the Prut, during which Moldovans and Romanians crossed what many described as a watery Berlin wall to see family members long separated by the international border.

The citizenship law, adopted in 1991, was one of the most liberal in Eastern Europe, allowing all persons living in the republic on the date of the declaration of sovereignty (June 23, 1990) to become citizens regardless of ethnicity, language, length of residence, or other criteria.

Transnistria became another of the many "black holes" throughout the former Soviet Union, regions such as Chechnya, Nagorno-Karabakh, and Abkhazia where no long-term settlement had been reached but where the writ of central governments no longer ran.

Clashes between Moldovan police and the growing band of armed Transnistrian "self-defense units" increased.

From 1990 things quickly spiraled out of the central government's control. Transnistrian workers armed themselves with weapons taken from Soviet army stores located in Transnistria and began to take over police stations and government institutions along the east bank.

Furthermore, the 1995 agreement said nothing about the tough issue of Russian weapons and other military equipment. Transnistrian, Moldovan, and Russian negotiators worked on this problem throughout the 1990s, but the sides were deeply divided. The Moldovans and Russians agreed that the equipment should either be destroyed or removed to Russia; the small Moldovan army had no need for the massive Fourteenth Army arsenal, nor did they have the money to pay for destroying or guarding the older ordnance, some of which dated back to the 1930s.

Inflation was rampant, with local newspapers printing notices instructing citizens on how many zeroes to add to the printed bills to keep up with the ruble's depreciation [...]

Among the various ethnic groups in Moldova, the position of the Gagauz - Orthodox Christian Turks - is unique.

Troops of Moldovan volunteers, emboldened with vodka, hijacked municipal buses in Chisinau and rushed to the Gagauz areas.

The disappointment that many intellectuals felt with the outcome of the national movement was part of a long history of disillusionment experienced by generations of nation-builders.

Moldova still has an official "language day" - the Limba noastră (Our Language) holiday held on August 31 - but celebrations receive little support from either the state or the public at large.

Sadly, though, the once-grand Boğdan Saray, the Moldovan palace atop the Sixth Hill, is today an Istanbul tire repair shop.

It was so out of the way, in fact, that Lenin’s underground Iskra newspaper was printed in Chisinau in 1901 and 1902, a minor connection to the world socialist movement in which later communist historians would take great pride.

Russian Bessarabia was frequently characterized as the Siberia of the west, a place about which Pushkin, exiled there from 1820 to 1823, was unequivocal: “Accursed town of Kishinev,” he wrote, “to abuse you the tongue will grow tired.”

The Moldavians were on their knees, holding their petitions on their heads, and muttering their requests while looking on the ground. . . . I usually allowed them to have their say, and then dismissed them, for which purpose I learned to speak a few Moldavian words.

The same good people who used to believe that the Ukraine was a musical instrument imported from Hawaii . . . thought when they saw the name Bessarabia in print that it was part of Arabia.

According to the 1926 census, women made up just over 51 percent of the MASSR’s total population of 572,114; they accounted, however, for 61 percent of all illiterates. Of all major ethnic groups in the MASSR, Moldovan women were the “least literate,” with only one in ten being able to read.

In Belarus, the effort to replace Russian or Polish loanwords with nativist constructs was denounced as an attempt to drive a wedge between Belarus and the rest of the Soviet Union.

Most spectacularly, in addition to examples taken from Lenin, Stalin, and Gorky, school grammars and other textbooks also contained readings from important Romanian writers such as Mihai Eminescu and Vasile Alecsandri, figures who a short time before had been denounced as the mouthpieces of Romanian xenophobes and oligarchs.

Pollution along the Dnestr, both from agricultural runoff and because of temperature changes associated with hydroelectric production, created a nearly dead river.

The 1986 Chernobyl accident, although far more serious in Ukraine and Belarus, also left its mark on the MSSR, and the following years would see a remarkable rise in genetic disorders and birth defects.

By and large, Romania remained a loyal member of the Soviet camp, so loyal in fact that it continued to follow the Soviet model even after the Soviets themselves had begun to realize the need for change.

The settling of Moldovan cultural policy is evident in one telling detail: In the entire period from 1945 to 1989, only one major spelling reform was carried out in the MSSR—the introduction of a new letter in 1967—whereas no fewer than six separate alphabets had been in use from 1925 to 1941.

Authorities worked hard to cover up the previous independent existence of most other territories annexed by the Soviet Union, but in the MSSR uncovering anything that might point to an independent sense of “Moldovanness” in history was an all-consuming task.

The region east of the Dnestr River is referred to by its Romanian name, Transnistria.

In the style of a mass confession, in August 1989 the Moldovans rejected the key feature that had long distinguished them from Romanians: the use of the Russian alphabet.

While gatherings in Tallinn, Vilnius, Riga, and other Soviet capitals celebrated the revival of indigenous cultures and identities in the late 1980s, crowds in the Moldovan capital of Chisinau (Kishinev) seemed to do exactly the opposite, rejecting the existence of a separate Moldovan nation and adopting the tricolor, national anthem, and official language of another country, Romania.

[Bubba · Rating 3 out of 5]

A great study of nation building in the Soviet Union. Well structured and researched, with sections on the specific problems in Transnistria and Gagauzia. The main takeaway is that creating "a Moldovan nation should have been a relatively easy enterprise" given the political separation of it from Romania since the beginning of the 19th century. But, at the collapse of the USSR, Moldovans still debated their identity. Were they truly distinct from Romanians or merely the victim of politicised identity construction at the hands of Moscow? Why does this debate continue on?

According to King, there was no real effort to establish a Moldovan culture separate from neighboring Romania after the Second World War and Soviet annexation. The serious efforts to drive a cultural wedge between Chisinau and Bucharest had taken place in the days of greater Romania, between the wars, when Bessarabia had been snatched away from Moscow's orbit in the wake of the 1917 revolutions. But, once it was squarely in the Soviet fold, and Moscow was no longer required to enhance the cultural cleavages between Moldovans and Romanians, little was done to cement a permanent divide (in terms of language, for example) beyond political rhetoric perpetually emphasizing the differences. And yet, the predicted, and feared, rush of Chisinau into Bucharest's embrace since 1991 has also not taken place.

King's final analysis is that after decades, even centuries, of being subject to the schemes of "cultural engineers", the actual peoples of Bessarabia and Transnistria began expressing their own visions of their identity in the 1980s. As we should expect, he notes, these visions are as diverse as those expressing them, and don't fit into the neat packages peddled by Moscow, Bucharest, or Chisinau.

[Michael Macdonald · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating analysis of the rise of an unwanted nation. With a flag.national language and at one stage the same national anthem as Romania, Moldova remains a separate state. Concise analysis shows the limits of nation building and the dangers of a gap in between the dreams of elites and the wish of people for representation. Questioning the wisdom of political theorists, this study explains the importance of engagement with voters over ideology and the use of theory for other ends. A valuable and contrary contribution to nationalism.

[peter jordason · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is so much more than I could ask for. I didn't expect it to be as thorough, as readable and as objective as it was. And it was all lf them. I had to shamefully admit some of my gaps in knowledge when it comes to my own country, namely the conundrums of Transnistria and Gagauz. While I am pretty sure the book would be of no interest to 99,9% of the people (as Moldova itself), it will be a fascinating read for anyone like myself invested in the issue. The only thing that I could ask for is an update after 20 years.

[Artur · Rating 4 out of 5]

The most complete guide on Moldova's social and political issues written so far in English, even though by its complexity and the neutral approach of the author, it can leave the common reader somehow confused and someone even angry :) that's why I loved it.

[Barron · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book's introduction states that "[t]he Moldovans are probably the least known of the former Soviet Union’s republican nationalities. This book is the only comprehensive study of the subject."

If you want to know about Moldova, you should probably read this book.

[Josh · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the unlikely event you want a history of Moldova, this is a very good and readable one. For me, it came along at the perfect time as I was traveling in Moldova and wondering, why is this not Romania? This books answers the question.

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite useful in understanding the modern country's mental issues. Making a country is hard, apparently.

[JT · Rating 3 out of 5]

a thorough coverage of the Moldovan identity, though the Transnistria conflict was glossed over. however it did give me a bit of cultural background on this fascinating, little-known country

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

An invaluable contribution to the field of Moldovan history, if only because there aren't a hell of a lot of books about Moldovan history.

[Bethany · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really a wonderful account of Moldova. Very thorough, but clear. No unnecessary information.

[Nicholas Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very welcome introduction to the complex history and current politics in Moldova. I knew quite a bit about Romania and those sections were both familiar and in line with the majority of scholars. The post-war sections were an eye opener as were the sections dealing with regional and ethnic conflicts. Highly recommend.

[Daniela · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this purely for Chp.9 “The Transnistria Conundrum” which provides an excellent explanation of Transnistria, a place that it is hard to find a lot easily accessible in depth literature on in the English language.