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| Anatol Țăranu | |
Facing multiple crises during the 30 years of its existence, the Republic of Moldova evolved into a real problem state on the European continent. In terms of economic development, the Moldovan state hasn’t reached the level achieved when it detached itself from the USSR. In general, as competent studies of the indexes of multidimensional development show, as a nation, the Republic of Moldova hasn’t yet asserted itself as a community of people who reached consensus about their identity and history and, as important, about their future. As a country, the Republic of Moldova is not yet ready to impose its sovereignty all over its internationally recognized territory. As a state, the Republic of Moldova still remains dysfunctional in many aspects, including as regards the fundamental pillars, such as the democratic institutions, supremacy of the law and ensuring of a stable economic basis. \
Starting line common with the Baltic states...
It should be noted that after the dissolution of the USSR, the former union republics all had different development courses. The Baltic states, which are comparable by territory and by the size of population with the Republic of Moldova, are the most successful ones. They made rapid progress and became members of the European Union. The comparison with the Baltic states is also relevant in terms of the starting line after the abandonment of the Soviet Union, which was common for all. If so, why are the results of the development during 30 years of independence in the Baltic sisters and in Moldova so different? Without a correct answer to this question, it is impossible to realize the real reasons of the failure of the Moldovan state project and to find solutions for remedying the situation.
... but with different Russification levels
The Baltic republics and Bessarabia were annexed by the USSR in 1940 and were subject to a harsh Russification process that was started during the tsarist empire and was stepped up during the Soviet period. The first Russification method consisted in the displacement of masses of people for changing the demographic structure of the newly created regions. The second Russification method included cultural actions: the population of the USSR was massively alphabetized and alphabetization was followed by the standardization of an education system that was primarily centered on the Russian culture, which meant the ignoring and marginalization of the cultures of the other ethnic groups. The difference between the Baltics and the Moldovans was created by the border of the ethnic communities in these former union provinces and republics. The Baltics appeared as compact and intrinsic ethic groups that each had their national language, monochrome culture and history, while the Moldovans of Bessarabia represented a part of a Neo-Latin nation from which they were separated by the invasive tsarist and more recently Soviet empire.
With regard to the Romanian-Moldovans from Bessarabia, the Russification process didn’t mean only the marginalization of the national culture of the natives. Unlike in the Baltic states, the national identity was also altered, being distorted through particular engineering schemes for creating false national identities. In other words, to justify the dismemberment of the Romanian nation and the inclusion of a part of it into the empire, the Moldovans of Bessarabia were to forget about their affiliation to Romanianism. The Moldovans eastward the Prut were deprived of nation, being offered instead an identity simulacrum – the Moldovan nation distinct from the Romanian one. In an attempt to justify the false Moldovan identity, they reached absurdity by inventing the Moldovan language distinct form the Romanian one. In Moldova situated eastward the Prut, the Soviet denationalization policy was the harshest one all over the empire and took the proportions of real identity genocide. The consequences of these policies continue to be felt nowadays, leaving an imprint on the big development problems of the Republic of Moldova.
Idea of nation and national state created modern Europe
In the theory about society, there is a broad consensus about the nature of system changes that occurred in the peripheral Soviet republics after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, which regained their independence by annihilating the Communist political system that was replaced with a nationalist system. The new independent states built the foundations of their state legitimacy by creating political bodies typical of a nation. The idea of a nation and national state created modern Europe, being simultaneously a catalyst for the appearance of mobilizing forms of social aggregation and a way for imposing collective behavioral norms based on the supreme sacrifice in the name of the interests of the community of citizens of the state. This way, in the new independent states from the post-Soviet area, the idea of national patriotism obtained legitimacy, becoming the driving force for the development of these societies. For the Republic of Moldova, the example of the neighboring Ukraine is the most convincing one, in which the idea of Ukrainian nation became the core of state unity.
This rule manifested itself less in the process of building the state in the Republic of Moldova. The attempt to mobilize the community of people in the young Moldovan state as part of the so-called Moldovan nation didn’t produce the expected result. Moldovan society remained diffuse, while the faults of the dismemberment of society remained intact, sometimes even expanding, as in the case of the Transnistrian conflict. This identity failure was due to the ignoring by the Moldovan political class of the fundamental postulate formulated in the text of the Declaration of Independence – the founding document of the state Republic of Moldova, which literally defines the historical basis of the national identity of the state like this: “GIVEN the millennium-long past of our nation and its uninterrupted statehood in the historical and ethnical space of its national development”. The ignoring of this major conclusion concerning the historical preconditions for the process of creating the identity-state construction within the borders of the Republic of Moldova also has had disastrous consequences.
Direction set by Independence Declaration...
So, as the Declaration of Independence stipulates, our nation has a millennium-long past within its borders that by far do not correspond to the borders of the Republic of Moldova, which is only a small part of “the historical and ethnical space of its national development”, not to mention the fact that national statehood of our nation within the borders of the Republic of Moldova was interrupted in 1812, 1940 and 1944. Following this logical line of the lawmakers who adopted the Declaration of Independence, we will ascertain that in this founding document of the state Republic of Moldova, the statehood in the national territory eastward the Prut was proclaimed in the name of the nation from the whole “historical and ethnical space of its national development”, where uninterrupted national statehood existed, which is in the name of the Romanian people from both sides of the Prut. Judging by the spirit and logic of the Declaration of Independence, the Republic of Moldova is the second national Romanian state that is “Free to decide its present and future without any interference from outside, in accordance with the sacred ideals and wishes of the nation in the historical and ethnic space of its national development”.
... was hampered
If this conceptual logic that is substantiated by the millennium-long history of our nation and that is reflected in the text of the founding document of the state, the Declaration of Independence, had been consistently and persistently applied by the Moldovan politicians in the process of building the state, today the Republic of Moldova would have been near the Baltic states and in the European Union, together with Romania. But the colonial inheritance played a trick on us. The identity diversion promoted for two centuries by the foreign invader in the Romanian space eastward the Prut made the Republic of Moldova deviate from the development path specified in the Declaration of Independence. In 1994 already, the Agrarian-Socialist parliamentary majority committed a political diversion, including in the text of the new Constitution a provision about “the continuity of the statehood of the Moldovan nation in the historical and ethnical context of its development as a nation”, which is evidently contrary to the logic and sprit of the Declaration of Independence. From that moment, the development path of the state Republic of Moldova lost its historical logic, setting off on a path to nowhere.
The Moldovenist anti-Romania separatism became a state identity policy in the Republic of Moldova and already condemned a generation of Moldovan citizens to poverty and human degradation, while the concept of the so-called “Moldovan civic nation” when the Republic of Moldova is not recognized as the second Romanian state is deigned to only paint with Europeanist colors the ugly face of the anti-Romania and, therefore, anti-European Moldovenism.
How do we enter Europe?
Today we have to ascertain with concern the lack of a clearly formulated concept of identity construction in the political arsenal of the pro-European government. The expectation that the European concept of civic nation will be mechanically implemented in the Moldovan soil is counterproductive and even dangerous as it ignores the historical stages of identity construct in the European states. It is enough here to make reference to the former constitutional project concerning the European Constitution whose Article I-5 point 1 mentioned “the national identity” of the member states of the European Union that the Union pledges to respect. The preamble of the constitutional treaty made reference to the same values when the national identity and history of the nations of Europe were mentioned.
If the Republic of Moldova intends to join the European Union, with what national identity does it want to color the European concept whose motto is “United through Diversity”? With the false Moldovenist or anti-Romania one that is imposed by the colonial past? With such an identity one can be eligible only in the Eurasian space of reviviscence of the Russian empire and only with the status of semi-colony. One can enter the European Union only with an authentic identity that for the Republic of Moldova is the Romanian one.
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.