The prospects of the Republic of Moldova are in the European Union and those who are nostalgic for the Soviet period should realize that Russia is not an attractive state, said historian Anatol Petrencu. According to him, the Republic of Moldova should not accept the aggressive policy of Moscow, while the war in Ukraine is the most relevant example. In an interview with IPN News Agency, Anatol Petrencu said the pro-Russian parties in the Republic of Moldova still bank on the people’s nostalgia for the Soviet period, implanting the idea of a great entity like the Russia-Belarus-Kazakhstan Customs Union, IPN reports.
The president of the Association of Historians of the Republic of Moldova said history reveals the horrors of the Soviet regime that were hidden by the then propaganda. Russia’s expansionist ambitions and aggressive character became evident especially after February 24, 2022.
“What was presented to us in the Soviet period was something false. In reality, things were very bad. Gulags, political repressions, use of psychiatry for political purposes. The then propaganda presented only the good sides to the public. The Russia propaganda insists on the fact that the other ex-Soviet states are failed states. The Russians continue insisting that Ukraine is an artificially created state. Now those who are nostalgic for the Soviet times are involved in politics by the promotion of the Russia-Belarus-Kazakhstan Customs Union,” said the historian.
According to him, the idea of Russia’s grandeur was imbedded in people’s minds through the agency of propaganda, while the reality revealed by the war in Ukraine shows the opposite.
“Russia today, even with its ambition to restore the former Soviet space, is not the Soviet Russia. Capitalism dominates in Russia now. That capitalism is even more inequitable than that under tsarism as all the clans that gained control over Gazprom, forests, gold mines do not share what they have with the poor people. We see expanding poverty among the population of Russia. After February 24, 2022, things changed radically. The war in Ukraine showed that Russia’s grandeur to which some aspired no longer exists. The so-called second greatest army of Russia, as they called it, cannot succeed in this war with Ukraine,” stated Anatol Petrencu.
He noted that the nostalgic Moldovans who yet hope that the Soviet Union will be revived should understand that the country’s future is in the EU. Russia is not attractive as a state, being an anti-example of rule of law and observance of human rights.
The interview “Mass deportations as state policy and antidote to nostalgia. Previous and current effects of deportations” was conducted as part of IPN Agency’s project “100 years of USSR and 31 years without USSR: Nostalgia for Chimeras” that is supported by the German Foundation “Hanns Seidel”.
