President Vladimir Voronin declared open the year of celebrating 650 years since the foundation of the Moldavian State. “It took much strength, centuries of hard trials for our continuity to find a place in a free, modern, European, independent Moldova. In a country ready again for a long independent journey in history. In a country where all the changes will be for better,” he said by ending his speech at the solemn reunion inaugurating the activities projected for 2009. “We and you are happy people,” he said. “Tens of people in the world fight for their statehood, independence, right to decide their own fates, to be what they are. And the result of this dramatic struggle, in most of the cases, continues to uncertain, though, often, the question is about peoples counting millions. This sad situation makes you realize how benevolent history was with us. 650 years ago, a new state appeared on the map of medieval Europe, Moldova, Moldavia. This country has changed its borders, sometimes it disappeared from sight, but returned every time. And every time with the same name!” Vladimir Voronin pointed out the main historical events during those 650 years, paying homage to the great personalities of the country. “The beginning of the statehood of any country are always legendary and historic. The legend told by our chronicle writers about founding the Moldavian Country by prince Dragos is well known. Chasing an aurochs, a successful hunt, the beauty of a land belonging to nobody caught the hunters' attention, the descent from Maramures, getting out from the influence of the Hungarian kingdom, settling the principality. We leave to historians to debate who was the actual founder of Moldavia – the legendary Dragos or Prince Bogdan. Bogdan I really was the founder of the first dynasty of the first Moldovian rulers, but the beautiful legend about Dragos founding Moldavia found reflection in our country's coat of arms where the head of the wisent is. Possibly in this case the symbolic and documentary history mutually complete one another in the most harmonious way. Another page is about Roman, who in three decades spreads Moldavia's boundaries to the Black Sea and names himself in documents “The Ruler of the Moldavian Country from mountain to the sea.” “Those thirty years of rule of the famous Alexandru the Good were the foreword of the epoch to be inaugurated by Stephen the Great afterwards. Moldavia of Alexandru the Good was already a country with intense diplomatic activity. It was then when Moldavian soldiers fought in the renowned battle of Grunwald, called by historians as the battle of the peoples.” About Stefan the Great Vladimir Voronin said :he was not the first ruler of Moldavia, but became its first hero. He did not have a tragic death on a battlefield, but turned into his whole life into a martyrdom in the name of Moldavia and Christendom. He was a soldier who thought the impossible was possible that is why he made the impossible.” “The contemporaries of Stephen the Great watched full of awe his victories on battlefields, the plan of each of them being precisely developed by the grand master. The monarchs and the modest chronicle writers, the clergy both Catholic and Orthodox, did spare compliments in his address. He was called Alexander of Macedon of our days, the great athlete of Europe. History treatises call him a great military commander. Subtler connoisseurs of the past consider him a smart diplomat and politician.” “Stefan built a fleet to ensure the maritime trade between Moldavia with Genoa and Venice. After Byzantine Empire fell, Moldavia of Stephen the Great tries to save the endangered Orthodox heritage. He built monasteries, defends the Orthodoxy in the territories occupied by the Ottomans, gives the monks on the Holy Mount of Athis lands and monasteries in Moldavia. Permanent wars, of which he lost but two battles, and continuous economic flourishing. These two things never went together along before him.” The epoch of the Ottoman domination interrupted the well-started development of the country. Not having the possibility to further develop independently, the Moldavian spirit manifested in other areas – in fresco painting, in church architecture, in chronicles, in education. The chronicle writers Macarie, Eftimie and Azarie, and later Grigore Ureche, Miron Costin, Ion Neculce, Metropolitan Dosoftei, with extraordinary faith in the free future of their homeland, wrote, leaf by leaf, our agitated history. An apex of this tradition and, at the same time, a completely new stage in the development of our spirituality was the phenomenon Dimitrie Cantemir. One of the most enlightened monarch of his epoch, a remarkable scientist, writer, philosopher, historian, speaking tens of languages perfectly, a member of the Berlin Academy of Science, he proved that the offspring of Dragos and Bogdan, of Alexandru the Good and Stephen the Great are capable of reaching the highest apexes of competence and international acclaim.” “The years in which Moldavia was divided by the then masters of Europe, and later the appearance of Romania could not determine the Moldavian people to renounce its statehood project, its attachment to that bold development program, the basis of which was laid by its eminent forefathers. The Moldavians repeatedly created precedents for their statehood – albeit in the form of the Democratic Moldavian Republic, which existed several months at the frontier of 1917 and 1918, or in the form of the Autonomous Moldavian Republic within Ukraine. Finally in 1940, it is part within the URSS as the Sovietic Socialist Moldavian Republic.” “The history of our republic cannot be looked at neglecting the events and process occurring in the Soviet Union, including the most dramatic ones. At the same time, we cannot recognize the fact that it was namely then in that Soviet period, full of contradictions, when our people started to develop socially and economically, what determined in many ways our independent development now. Moldova, from an agrarian province of the neighboring state, in which no higher education institution was, in which half of the populace was illiterate, turned into a republic with a booming economy. Thousands of schools, and vocational and higher education institutions opened in Moldova. And also theaters, the Academy of Science employing some 10,000 researchers. It was a period when we had such known names as Emil Loteanu, Maria Biesu, Eugen Doga, Ion Druta, Grigore Vieru, artistic ensembles “Joc” and “Lautarii”, and other real stars of our culture. In his speech, the Moldovan president did not mention important periods in the Moldavians' history as the repeated mass deportations during the Soviet period and the national revival movement of the 80s-90s of the last century, in which the whole society was involved. Among the nation's great personalities he mentioned Mihai Eminescu but once, Info-Prim Neo reports.