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| Anatol Țăranu | |
Three decades ago, on December 23, 1994, the Parliament of the Republic of Moldova adopted the Law "On the Special Legal Status of Gagauzia", thus establishing the Gagauz Autonomous Unit within the Moldovan state. This event is considered one of the few examples of peaceful resolution of the multitude of ethnopolitical conflicts that erupted in the post-Soviet space after the collapse of the USSR. It is also true that over the years, the conflict between Chisinau and Comrat has not been definitively resolved as it has continued to smolder throughout this period, going through periods of brief calm, followed by hostilities for now only political and of varying intensity.
Today the Gagauzians, numbering about 150,000 people, represent the descendants of the Transdanubian settlers (Bulgarians and Gagauzians) who were brought by the tsarist authorities to Bugeac because they showed full loyalty to the Russian empire in the wars with the Turks. The Russian imperial policy sought to colonize Bessarabia, annexed in 1812, with a population loyal to the tsar. And the Bulgarians and Gagauzians, who had settled in Moldavian Bessarabia annexed by the Russians, abandoned their homeland south of the Danube because of the persecutions of the Osmans, being lured to move to Bugeac also through a series of economic privileges from the tsarist administration, which allowed them to become a wealthy population in their new homeland. However, the economic prosperity of the Transdanubian colonists in Bessarabia, as well as in other regions of the Russian empire, was paid for at the cost of a long process of ethnic and cultural assimilation, in the case of the Gagauz resulting in the degradation of the national language and culture, replaced by almost full Russification.
In the interwar period, starting with 1918, when Bessarabia united with Romania, a cultural renaissance of the Gagauz was witnessed, the first schools with teaching in Turkish were opened, the first writings in Gagauz appeared and religious books were translated into Gagauz for the first time. In 1938, the great Gagauz intellectual M. Çakir edited the Gagauz-Romanian dictionary, and a large part of the Gagauz population knew the Romanian language well. The integration of the Gagauz into the political life of interwar Romania reached paradoxical situations, when in the 1930s a good part of the electors of Gagauz origin voted for the far-right nationalist party "Everything for the Country". According to Turkish historians, the interwar period was the most beneficial for the true rise of the Gagauz language and culture, and not the Soviet period, as many current Gagauz leaders claim.
After the annexation of Bessarabia in 1940 by the USSR, the massive Russification of the Gagauz occurred through the purge of the entire Gagauz cultural elite in the interwar period, in fact also of the Bessarabian one as a whole. The Soviets destroyed, often physically, through the organized famine of 1946-47, through the deportations of 1941, 1949 and 1951, the cultural and economic elite of the Gagauz community, transforming the overwhelming majority of the Gagauz into a totally Russified homo sovieticus who degenerated profoundly as a bearer of the Gagauz language and ethnic culture. During the Soviet period, there was no school teaching in the Gagauz language, let alone cultural autonomy.
At the beginning of the democratization processes provoked by the perestroika policy, national liberation movements appeared throughout the Soviet Union, including in Moldova. On the wave of these radical transformations, the Popular Front of Moldova was founded in Chisinau, which demanded the sovereignty of the people, the Romanian language, the Latin alphabet, the recognition of the Moldovan-Romanian identity. The inevitable process of national emancipation naturally included the Gagauz organized in the Gagauz Halkî movement, which at the beginning had cooperation relations with the Popular Front of Moldova. The Gagauz delegates participated in rallies in Chisinau, during which most of the Gagauz wishes regarding the revival of the Gagauz language and national culture were supported.
However, the processes of Russification of the Gagauz left much deeper imprints on this ethnic community than on the environment of the Bessarabian Moldovans. During the Soviet period, the links between the Gagauz and the Romanian cultural and linguistic environment in Bessarabia were almost erased. The adoption of the Moldovan language (Romanian) as the state language, on August 31, 1989, not only did not have an echo of solidarity among the Gagauzians, but also aroused a feeling of hostility in them. The leaders of the Gagauz movement pleaded for the granting of the Russian language with the status of state language, directing their compatriots towards an alliance with the enemies of the Movement for the National Emancipation of Moldovans, and acted as fierce opponents of Moldova's independence. At the referendum on the preservation of the USSR, the Gagauz community voted in favor of keeping the Soviet Union, in fact against the Republic of Moldova as an independent state.
That is why, when today the Gagauz leaders try to present Gagauzia as a pillar of the statehood of the Republic of Moldova, they shamelessly cheat. In reality, for the majority of the Gagauz political class, the Republic of Moldova is just a transit station, where the Gagauz people settled until the moment when this space will be swallowed up again by the revanchist Russian empire. It is precisely this dominant feeling among the Gagauz that leaves this national minority disinterested in assuming the Romanian language, in integrating the Romanian majority ethnic group into the cultural environment. And the almost total Romania-phobia in the Gagauz environment is the result of these expectations of Moscow's reconquest of the Romanian space eastward the Prut. Just as, in the Gagauz environment, there is still the understanding, which is otherwise correct, that only a Republic of Moldova developed based on the concept of anti-Romanian Moldovenism is likely to become Russian again. On the other hand, a Romanian Republic of Moldova means the definitive detachment from the nightmare of Russian colonialism and the effective Europeanization of this space.
Under these conditions, the Kremlin benefited the most from the provision of the status of autonomous unit to the districts compactly populated by Gagauzians. In all its years of existence, ATU Gagauzia, together with separatist Transnistria, have become effective levers for Russia to keep the Republic of Moldova in its geopolitical sphere of influence. Every time Chisinau manifested the desire to promote policies separated from Moscow's interest, the factor of territorial separatism was immediately activated, and the Gagauz were used as cannon fodder to strain relations between Chisinau and Comrat. This is what happened when Chisinau became active in the field of European integration. Immediately in Gagauzia, in 2014, an unconstitutional referendum was organized and was used as an element of blackmail against Chisinau. In this, over 98% of the Gagauz voted for closer relations with the Russian Customs Union, in fact, against integration into the EU.
In its absolute majority, the Gagauz community places itself on anti-European positions, defying through this attitude the civilization aspirations of the Moldovan Romanians. Thus, in the 2024 constitutional referendum, almost 95% of the Gagauz voted against the inclusion of the provision on EU membership in the Constitution. Therefore, there is a situation when the whole of Moldova is turning to the EU, while Gagauzia wants to go towards Moscow, and this attitude is manifested when the funding from the state budget for ATU Gagauzia exceeds the funds directed to most districts in the rest of the Republic of Moldova. The same situation is witnessed in relation to European funding. As President Maia Sandu recently noted, the government in Chisinau devotes great attention to the improvement of the lives of the inhabitants of the autonomous unit and, within the European Village program alone, implements 15 projects to the value of 73 million lei. For its part, the European Union invested over 1 billion lei in the autonomous unit in the last five years.
In 30 years of the adoption of the Law "On the Special Legal Status of Gagauzia", we must note that the advantages of the Gagauz autonomous unit have not been used by the ordinary citizens, and the Gagauz language and culture, in all these years, have continuously degenerated. The main profiteer of autonomy became the political class in Comrat, which betrayed the vital interests of its own people, changing them for the possibility of enriching themselves, including from subsidies from Moscow, in order to perpetuate the continuous conflict between Comrat and Chisinau. This reality became especially clear after the election as Bashkan of Yevgenia Guțul, an obedient political figure who is totally subservient to the convicted oligarch Shor, who serves Moscow's imperial interests. A way out of this impasse can be secured only after the the Gagauz political class is cleansed, when the administration in Comrat will consist of true patriots of Gagauzia, who are capable of contributing to the harmonization of the authentic interests of the Gagauz community with the interests of the majority of Moldovan Romanians in the Republic of Moldova. In order for this transformation of the Gagauz political class to happen as soon as possible, Chisinau must pursue an active policy towards Comrat, based on a meticulously designed concept, with the aim of bringing the Gagauz community into the space of loyalty to the state to which they belong.
Anatol Țăranu
doctor of history, political commentator
In the Op-Ed section, IPN publishes opinion articles signed by authors from outside the editorial office. The opinions expressed in these articles do not necessarily coincide with the opinions of the editorial staff.
IPN publishes in the Op-Ed rubric opinion pieces submitted by authors not affiliated with our editorial board. The opinions expressed in these articles do not necessarily coincide with the opinions of our editorial board.