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| Veaceslav Craciun | |
World War I ended exactly 100 years ago, on November 11, 1918. On the occasion of this jubilee, Ceadir-Lunga town hosted a scientific conference. Famous scientists and public figures analyzed why WWI was forgotten in the Soviet period and how it influenced the Gagauzian and Bulgarian villages in southern Bessarabia. Besides this, the historians noted that the process of remembering that war is more active in the southern region.
An “unjust” war
A scientific conference entitled “World War I in the past of southern Bessarabia” was held in Ceadir-Lunga municipality on November 7. The event was staged as part of the project “Together we Restore Memory” that is supported by public organizations based in Gagauzia and all over Moldova. The initiative and the main organizational effort were undertaken by Svetlana Capangi, author of the study of the participation by Gagauzian and Bulgarian people in the WWI. The event involved several dozen scientists, researchers of the native place and representatives of the local authorities of Chisinau, Gagauz-Yeri and Taraclia district.
According to Doctor of History Ion Duminică, World War I was devoted no attention in the Soviet Union.
“It was due to political circumstances. But the interest in the 1914 – 1918 period is restored and Gagauzia becomes one of the centers of this process. In the autonomous unit, as in the neighboring Taraclia, new researches appear and become a valuable contribution to national historiography,” stated Duminică.
According to historian Anatol Petrencu, professor of the State University of Moldova, the fact that WWI was bourgeois and imperialistic in character was its main sin before the Soviet power. This deprived it of chances of being taken into account by the official historical sciences.
Studies concerning WWI
Even if WWI didn’t match the official Soviet ideology, the population kept the memory of the participants in that war. Many family stories about the death of relatives entered the people’s music folklore. Monuments in memory of war victims appeared in some of the villages in southern Bessarabia, while this formed part of Romania for a short period of time. One of the monuments was erected in Etulia village by a participant in the war, who returned to his native village. In 1999, his 79-year-old son restored the obelisk that suffered serious damage during tens of years. New monuments were erected in Avdarma and Gaidarly villages of Ceadir-Lunga district. The project of the commemorative complex in Taraclia was designed.
Starting with the 1990s, many researchers of the native place carried out studies covering villagers who took part in WWI. In the conference held in Ceadir-Lunga, such information about compatriots from Valea-Perjei village was presented by Doctor of Philology Ivan Kurtev. Scientific researcher of the Academy of Sciences of Moldova Emilia Bankova provided information about compatriots from Korten village, while native place researcher Feodor Curu about compatriots from Gaidarly village.
The researches during the past few years passed to a new level. The authors studied hundreds of documents from the national archives and the archives of Romania and Russia. The obtained information helps realize the scale of the participation by the population from southern Bessarabia in WWI. More than 1,000 persons from Gagauzian and Bulgarian villages were killed, wounded or went missing between August 1914 and May 1915 alone. A number of 23,662 persons from Ackerman, Bender and Ismail counties or about 12% of the total population of these counties were mobilized during the years of WWI. Those who were killed or died as a result of injuries from these counties numbered 2,532. Information about other counties of Bessarabia hasn’t been yet made public, but it is said that 250,000 to 300,000 persons were mobilized in the whole gubernia.
Bloody echo of war
The war left an imprint not only on the destinies of people, but also on political processes. According to Doctor of History Ivan Grec, World War I became a catalyst for the tumultuous events of the Russian Empire that resulted in the October revolution. The given changes could not avoid Bessarabia that, after the failed attempt to create an independent Moldovan state, became a part of Romania. The new political circumstances in the interwar period caused a wave of immigration of the population of Gagauzia to the countries of Latin America, mainly Brazil. According to the scientist, for the Gagauz and other inhabitants of the region, the re-inclusion of Bessarabia into the USSR was also like an echo of WWI.
“The people were struck from two directions, figuratively speaking, because many inhabitants in the 1940s moved to live over the Prut and the people during World War II were summoned to fight under the colors of both of the belligerent armies. Afterward, Bugeac was affected by the famine of 1946 – 1947 and the repression. Tens of thousands of Gagauz people and Bulgarians died, dispersed throughout the world or were assimilated owing to these cataclysms,” stated Grec.
The historian also presented the hypothesis that World War I hampered the formation of the Gagauz conscience, noting that if the Gagauz villages had avoided 22 years of Romanian citizenship and had immediately become part of the USSR, the people of Gagauzia would have obtained autonomy in the 1920s, but would have received the forced Soviet collectivization and the repression of the 1920-1930 as a “bonus” for this.
Professor Petrencu underlined that WWI had serious consequences and directly or indirectly determined the character of the political regimes in Europe and the USSR in the first half of the 20th century.
“World War I had a number of particularities: machine guns were used for the first time during the military operations, nocturnal bombardments of the civil population were staged for the first time and poisonous chemical substances were used also for the first time. This way the harshness of murders reached unprecedented proportions,” stated Petrencu.
He noted it is not surprising that the people who witnessed such murders, participants in a similarly cruel civil war in Russia, later gave birth to totalitarian regimes and repressive bodies, such as gulags, where the human life had no value.
Historical memory
The event ended with laying of flowers at the monument to participants in WWI in Ceadir-Lunga, which is located in the central park of the town. Another monument, to those killed in World War II, which is always covered with flower wreaths, is situated 50 meters from this one. The symbolical picture showed how WWI was undeservedly forgotten compared with WWII.
One of the guests opined that it is easier to write a general history textbook than to write the history of the native village. It is probably easier to speak about the interests of the world powers and political ideologies than to obtain evidence of the heroic or tragic past of the forerunners. But this is how, by personifying history, the historical memory of the people is formed. Currently, the neglecting of the 1914 – 1918 period is being gradually overcome in Gagauz-Yeri. Historians from Chisinau confessed they would like other regions of Moldova to also follow such a tendency.
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.
IPN note:
According to the information portal “Ruskii mir”, the scientific conference “World War I in the past of southern Bessarabia”, held to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I of 1914 – 1918, was organized by the Consultancy and Information Center “Dialog” in cooperation with the Scientific Society of Bulgarians in the Republic of Moldova within the project “Together we Restore Memory” that is implemented in Gagauzia and Taraclia district with support from the Foundation “Russkii mir”.