The Republic of Moldova is one of the few states that have a holiday dedicated to the national language. This is a reason for joy. But the history and reasons that led to the institution of this holiday show the dramatic destiny of our people. The holyday dedicated to the Romanian language appeared as a natural reaction of the people to the injustice done to them during centuries, President Nicolae Timofti stated in a public lecture given at the Academy of Sciences of Moldova within a festive meeting held on the occasion of the Romanian Language Day, IPN reports.
In his speech entitled “Romanian language, politics and rule of law”, Nicolae Timofti said that since 1812 until 1989, the policies pursued by the empires of which the territory of our state formed part hampered the Romanian language’s access at all the social and political levels. This historical reality cannot be challenged. The period of 22 years, from 1918 until 1940, when the current territory of the Republic of Moldova formed part of the administrative structure of the Romanian state and the Romanian language was the official language, makes an exception from those almost two centuries.
“It is known that the struggle for restoring the status of the Romanian language has never stopped, having more active or latent periods. I will remind here about the ardent struggle of poet Alexei Mateevici of the start of the 20th century. He and his confreres had a decisive impact in the process of awakening the national conscience of the Moldovans and in uniting the forces with the aim of separating from the Russian empire. His poem “Our language” urges us to be consistent on the path of returning to our identity-related values and to develop them. The fact that this poem became the national anthem of the Republic of Moldova is a proof that the Romanian language, our national language, is one of the pillars of our ethnic identity,” said the Head of State.
According to him, Moldova’s territory has always been a place where the interests of the great powers intersected. It was often used as a field of geopolitical battles. Most of the times, neither the people living here nor the politicians who represented them were asked what they want and their options weren’t taken into account by the great powers.
Things started to return to normality when the new state - the Republic of Moldova - was proclaimed. The Declaration of Independence enshrines the Romanian language as the official language. The writers, linguists and scientists were the first to use the phrase ‘Romanian language’, which was also introduced in the education system in its normal circuit.
“The fact that the same language is called by different names leads to the split of Moldovan society. Who does not understand this is against the development of our state. We cannot continue on the path of untruth. These hesitations should have been brought to an end long ago. We are Romanian ethnics, even if we call ourselves Moldovans,” stated Nicolae Timofti.
He called on the Moldovans not to deviate from the path and to follow strictly the European development course. The authorities pledged to restructure and democratize the state based on the model of the European countries. “We have yet a lot to do. All the difficulties through which our state went during these 25 years can and should be overcome by uniting all the healthy forces - the political class, administrative factor, people of science, people of culture, civil society and all the people of good faith - in our common work aimed at making the Republic of Moldova a prosperous state of which we would be proud and where the people would want to live,” stated the President.
Such public lectures on the Romanian language at the Academy of Sciences have been staged since 2005 and were given by members of honor of the Academy, academicians and philologists.
