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A controversy exists over the national identity and name of the native language of the main ethnicity of the Republic of Moldova.

The controversy

The indigenous ethnic majority, is defined as “Moldovan” by article 12 of the Constitution. Several recent acts state that this identity excludes “Romanian” identity. Several recent decrees specify that the Moldovan identity historically preceded Romanian one, basing this conclusion on the fact Moldavia was in existence as a Principality (from 1359) long before the birth of modern Romania (in 1859). Moldovan is also the state language of the country.

The official definition of a distinct Moldovan identity has had a number of political and scientific effects:

• it gives rise to protests from the the scientific community;;
• it gives rise to protests from the population, especially from teachers and students;
• it hinders the rapprochement of the Republic of Moldova with the European Union, for Romania refuses to ratify any document which denies the Romanian ethnic identity of the indigenous people of the Moldova;

From the linguistic point of view, it repudiates two facts:

• the existence of a Romanian-speaking group which differs from the political grouping of Romanian or Moldovan citizens (who are not all Romanian speakers) and who understand each another’s speech immediately and completely without any need of a translator;
• the fact that the ancient regional dialects of the Romanian language (called “Romanian” in Romania, “Moldovan” in Moldova, also sometimes Daco-Romanian language by some linguists), namely the dialects of Moldavia, Bukovina, Bessarabia, Transylvania, Banat, Valachia, Oltenia, and Dobruja, were unified in the 19th century beyond political boundaries to the point where today, one can no longer speak linguistically of different varieties in these different regions.

The controversy surrounding national identity fuels permanent tension in the Moldovan society:

• in constitutional and legislative instability (viz. the constitution, numerous laws, the state anthem, regional organisation, uniforms, institutions have all undergone numerous changes since independence);
• in the instability of relations between Moldova and neighbouring countries: in order to attract its electorate, each political party uses its special relationship with one of the neighbouring countries while denouncing the privileged relationship of opposing parties with other countries.
• in that serious problems arrose in education after 2001 (in reference to the teaching of History and Russian language);
• in the high proportion of double or triple citizenships among the Moldovan citizens, and many further requests for such, which is viewed by some politicians as undermining Moldova's statehood;

Moldovan identity controversy in Romania

Russian, Soviet and Moldovan writers who uphold the definition of a “non-Romanian Moldovan” identity are divided over the question whether the Moldovans from the geographic and historical region of Moldavia in Romania (“Moldova”) are also “non-Romanian”, or whether they are Romanians and so, different from the Moldovans of Moldova.

Thus, each government upholds a different definition of the population of the other side of the border. The terms Moldavia and Moldova, respectively Moldavian and Moldovan are sometimes confused, as other languages except English use a single term. There is no disagreement among Moldavians from Romania about their ethnic identity, whereas the Moldovans of the Republic of Moldova are divided when it comes to the definition used by their own government administration: some oppose it (mainly the young and the city dwellers), most do not know or care, others are in agreement with the authorities (more the elderly, predominantly the villagers, and more non-ethnic Moldovans).

If historical and ethnological arguments are sometimes put forward in this controversy, the main part of the argumentation of the two “schools”, “romanists” and “moldovenists” comes from the field of linguistics.

Linguistic point of view

The linguistic dispute focuses on two points:

• are Romanian and Moldovan two distinct languages or one single language?
• if they are one single language, is it right to give it several names, names which differ from one state to another or should only one name be selected?

Those who speak the language understand one another immediately and completely without translation or dictionary and no distinction between the two languages is made by scientific linguists, who agree that the basic lexical content and grammatical structure are identical, even though there are regional accents and some local expressions (which can be found, moreover, on either side of the border which separates Romania and Moldova). For example, a cabbage, a drill and a water melon are respectively said “curechi”, “sfredel” and “harbuz” in Moldova and Moldavia, but “varzǎ”, “burghiu” and “pepene” in Transylvania and Wallachia. However, all the Daco-Romanian speakers know and understand both forms of each term.

From a strictly linguistic point of view, Romanian and Moldovan are merely political terms for a single “Daco-Romanian” language, an abstand language in socio-linguistic terms, that is, a language in which the dialects, past or present, display enough common structural traits, scientifically established, to constitute one language. Most Romanian linguists consider that Romanian (or "Daco-Romanian" in the stricter sense) itself is merely the northern dialect of an older and more widely defined Proto-Romanian language (spoken between 6th and 13th centuries north and south of Danube), Aromanian, Istro-Romanian and Megleno-Romanian being the varieties spoken southwards. The four dialects nowadays are not mutually intelligible.

Additionally, before 2001, the two regulating bodies of the Daco-Romanian language, the Romanian Academy and the Academy of Sciences of Moldova had two different rules for the sound represented by the Russian letter "ы", or Turkish ı : the Romanian Academy sated it should be written “î” as initial, and “â” in other positions, while the Academy of Sciences of Moldova stated it should always be written “î”.

In October 2008, the US Library of Congress discontinued the usage of the code mo/mol: the language under which the publications must be classified will be ro/rom/rum.

The name of the country

To differentiate the name of the modern country Moldova, which has been independent since August 1991, from that of the historic region of Moldavia, the authorities of Chisinau have registered the neologism “Moldova” (which is the native form of the name) with UNO both in English and in the Romance languages.

Before 1991, the term “Moldavian” was generally taken to mean everything which belonged to or was the concern of Moldavia, whether it was a matter of the historic Principality of Moldavia, of the actual geographical region of Romania, or of the Moldovan SSR.

Since 1991 the English term “Moldovan” refers solely to anything which relates to Moldova. Romanian nationalists also challenge the use of the name "Moldavia" for the Republic of Moldova, as, according to them, that name should be kept for the Romanian part of Moldavia.

History of the Moldavian/Moldovan identity

The Moldavian identity has gone through two radically different stages :

• a historic period, medieval in origin, prior to the emergence of the nations of the 19th century and connected with the Principality of Moldavia, in which the “Moldavian” identity was defined, as was the case in the whole of Europe, by membership of a certain empire, kingdom, principality or duchy;
• a Soviet period, which followed the emergence of the Romanian nation in the 19th century in the areas inhabited by the Daco-Romanian speaking population. This second period began in 1924 with the founding of an autonomous Moldavian region on the eastern side of the river Dniester, where a distinct Moldovan identity was defined, as opposed to the Romanian “imperialist” one.

The historic Moldavian identity is compatible with the Romanian identity also from the point of view of occupancy rights (according to which any inhabitant of Moldavia is a Moldavian, whatever his origins, culture or language). On the other hand, according to scholars, the present Moldovan identity, Soviet in origin, excludes both occupancy rights and the Romanian identity. Controversy ensues from this incompatibility.

According to medieval Moldavian historians Miron Costin and Grigore Ureche, before and in the the 17th century, the inhabitants of the Principality of Moldavia, called themselves “Moldavians”, while speaking a language identical to that of Valachians and Transylvanians. According to them, the Slav neighbours called Moldavians "Volokhs", a term which referred also to the Romance language speaking people of Wallachia, Transylvania, Dobrudja and the Balkan peninsula.

During the 19th century, a new feeling of nationality developed in the sentiment of the Romance language speaking peoples of these countries. This mirrored a general trend of national emancipation throughout Europe. Just as those who spoke Germanic languages began to feel themselves to be Germans, despite their political splits or their dialects, and just as the Italian language speakers began to define themselves as Italians and to dream of a united country which would bring them together into one state, so did the Vlachs of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, of the Russian Empire, and of the Ottoman Empire develop a new “Romanian” identity and start to claim their freedom and their unification into a single state which they intended to call “Romania”.

But these ideas spread mainly in urban areas and amongst the better educated, while the rural communities continued to define themselves as “Transylvans” (Ardeleni, Ungureni), “Moldavians” (Moldoveni) or “Wallachians” (Munteni).

The roots of the identity controversy in Moldova arise from this difference between the various classes of the population and from the fact that the Russian Empire until 1917, then the Soviet Union from 1918 till 1989, and finally the Moldovan government since 1994 undertook measures to root out from the Moldovans the feeling of being “Romanian”, and to transform their adherence to the Moldavian area into a national identity which was different from and opposed to the Romanian identity.

In the Moldovan SSR, several factors contributed to the elimination of the Romanian identity:

• the physical elimination of the people who were anti-Soviet (described as agents of "boyar" (aristocratic) Romania);
• the repression by the fifth directorate of the sixth administration of the KGB of any such belief, which was then called “manifestation of bourgeois nationalism” together with sanctions applied against its agents;

In this situation, the pro-separate identity group was aimed to represent a majority over the “pro-unification” group.

These controversies over identity mingle with the political divisions between, on the one hand, “pro-Westerners, who are trying to distance themselves from the Soviet model and adapt to the European model, but who are themselves politically divided, and, on the other hand, the “pro-Russians” who are trying to bring about closer ties to Moscow. Thus, the politics of the president of Moldova, Vladimir Voronin, with its reference to Communism and to a Moldovan identity which differs from the Romanian identity, is regarded by many as pro-Soviet, while in fact it is just pro-Moscow.

Similar national identity controversies

The case of this controversy is not unique. In the former Yugoslavian republics, the transformation can also be observed between “local” and geographic identities and national identities, which differ from and conflict with another one. For example, in Montenegro a controversy exists over the identity of people who see themselves as Serbs because they speak the same language, use the same alphabet and practise the same religion as the Serbs, and those who see themselves as Montenegrins because Montenegro and Serbia were at times part of different states. The Montenegrin government generally encourages the Montenegrin identity.

This transformation of local identities into national identities, which political leaders of these states judged necessary in order to legitimise their independence, rests on the following main developments:

• the construction of an appropriate history, emphasising everything which separates the state from its neighbours;
• emphasis on the existence of a local language (Moldovan, Montenegrin.

Public opinion is thus split between a “pro-unification” group (with Romania in Moldavia, with Serbia in Montenegro), and a “pro-independence” group (which in these two cases won the majority).

References

1. moldova.md
6. see “ro:Limba Românä” on the Romanian Misplaced Pages
7. Template:Ro icon Marele dicţionar de neologisme (The Great Dictionary of Neologisms), Florin Marcu, Saeculum Publishing House, 2000, cf. dexonline.ro
8. Template:Ro icon Noul dicţionar explicativ al limbii române, Litera Internaţional (The New Explanatory Dictionary of the Romanian Language), Litera Internaţional Publishing House, 2002, cf. dexonline.ro
9. Template:Ro icon Noul dicţionar explicativ al limbii române, Litera Internaţional (The New Explanatory Dictionary of the Romanian Language), Litera Internaţional Publishing House, 2002, cf. dexonline.ro
10. Template:Ro icon Noul dicţionar explicativ al limbii române, Litera Internaţional (The New Explanatory Dictionary of the Romanian Language), Litera Internaţional Publishing House, 2002, cf. dexonline.ro
11. Charles Upson-Clark, Bessarabia, Dodd, Mead & Co., N.Y., 1927
12. Robert King, Minorities under communism, Harvard Univ. Press, Ma, 1973
13. Gheorghe Negru, Politica etnolingvistică în RSS Moldovenească, Ed. Prut international, Chişinău 2000, ISBN 9975-69-100-5
14. Keith Hitchins, Studies on Romanian national consciousness, Milan & Nagard 1983
15. Roger-William Seton Watson, A history of the Romanians, Cambridge University Press, 1934
16. Frederick Kellogg, A history of romanian historical writing, Bakersfield, Ca., 1990
17. Roger-William Seton Watson, A history of the Romanians, Cambridge Univ. Press 1934
18. Bugai, Nikolai F.: Deportatsiya narodov iz Ukainyi, Belorussii i Moldavii - Deportation of the peoples from Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova. Druzhba Narodov, Moscow 1998, Dittmar Dahlmann & Gerhard Hirschfeld. - Essen 1999, pp. 567-581
19. John Barron, The KGB, Reader's Digest inc., 1974, ISBN 0-88349-009-9
21. Hugh Seton Watson, New nations & states, London 1997

Bibliography

• John Barron, The KGB, Reader's Digest inc., 1974, ISBN 0-88349-009-9
• Bugai, Nikolai F.: Deportatsiya narodov iz Ukainyi, Belorussii i Moldavii - Deportation of the peoples from Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova. Druzhba Narodov, Moscow 1998, Dittmar Dahlmann & Gerhard Hirschfeld. - Essen 1999, pp. 567-581
• Charles Upson-Clark, Bessarabia, Dodd, Mead & Co., N.Y., 1927
• Frederick Kellogg, A history of Romanian historical writing, Bakersfield, Ca., 1990
• Charles King, The Moldovans: Romania, Russia, and the politics of culture, Hoover Institution Press, Stanford University, 2000. ISBN 0-8179-9792-X
• S. Orifici, The Repubic of Moldova in the 1990's : from the declaration of independence to a democratic state, Geneve 1994
• A. Pop, The Soviet-Romanian controversy & Moldova's independence policy, Romanian review of international studies, 26, 1992
• Hugh Seton-Watson, New nations & states, London 1997
• Roger-William Seton-Watson, A history of the Romanians, Cambridge Univ. Press 1934
• G. Simon, Nationalism & Policy toward nationalities in the Soviet Union, Boulder, S.F., Ca, & Oxford, 1991

• Articles needing cleanup from August 2008
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• Misplaced Pages pages needing cleanup from August 2008
• History of Moldova
• History of Romania
• Sociolinguistics
• Moldovan society
• Romanian society
• Romance peoples