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| Anatol Țăranu | |
President Maia Sandu was awarded the Reinhard Mohn 2025 Prize from the Bertelsmann Foundation in Gütersloh in Germany for strengthening democracy. The head of state said on her Facebook page that the award is "a recognition of the work of all those who believe in freedom and are building a better Moldova".
At last week's award ceremony last week, when she was presented with the prize, the message of praise was delivered by German Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who, among other things, spoke of Moldova as "a multi-ethnic country", listing Romanians among the ethnic minorities. The Chisinau press has reported Maia Sandu's lack of reaction to this principled remark on Moldova's identity made by the German President.
Anti-Romanian Moldovanism: a geopolitical tool
The Republic of Moldova is a state in a perpetual identity crisis. More than three decades after declaring independence from the USSR, the country remains caught in a tangle of contradictions, external influences and ideological struggles.
The fundamental question dividing society is one of identity: are we Romanians or Moldovans? This confusion, still hatched in the Soviet ideological laboratories and maintained by Russian propaganda and politicians interested in maintaining the status quo of anti-Romanian Moldovanism, is turning the Republic of Moldova into a geopolitical hostage of Moscow. In contrast, assuming the Romanian identity is the only real path to modernization and European integration.
So-called 'Moldovanism' is not a mere historical theory, but a political weapon created in Soviet laboratories to weaken Romanian national consciousness in Bessarabia. The Soviet ideologues of Stalin's time invented a 'Moldovan language' distinct from Romanian and tried to erase any reference to the historical and cultural links between the two banks of the Prut. After the collapse of the USSR, this artificial Moldovanism was taken over and perpetuated by the forces of Russian imperialist revanchist revanchism, which are using identity confusion to prevent the Republic of Moldova from carving out a European future.
This type of Moldovanism is not purely cultural, but has a clear political aim: to keep the Republic of Moldova within Russia's sphere of influence. By promoting a false identity, political leaders serving Moscow's interests try to keep a divided and easily manipulable population. Thus, anti-Romanian Moldovanism serves as a barrier against any rapprochement with Romania and, implicitly, with the European Union.
How Moldovanism keeps Moldova captive to Moscow
By promoting anti-Romanian Moldovanism, Moscow and its local agents are blocking democratic reforms and European integration. In particular, they are using the manipulation of history and education. Since the Soviet period, a falsified history has been taught in Moldovan schools, in which the Moldovan people were presented as different from the Romanian people. Although after 1991 important steps have been taken to recover the historical truth, pro-Russian forces are constantly trying to reintroduce Soviet narratives into the public debate in Moldovan society.
One of Moscow's main levers of influence in the Republic of Moldova is its control over the media space, with the pro-Kremlin press playing a crucial role in maintaining Moldovanism. Russian-controlled TV channels and websites constantly spread anti-Romanian and anti-Western messages, creating an atmosphere of suspicion and fear of European integration.
In line with Russian propaganda, pro-Russian political parties, such as the PSRM and others of a similar orientation, are active, actively promoting the idea that rapprochement with Romania would lead to the loss of Moldova's sovereignty and its involvement in the war. These formations benefit from financial and logistical support from Russia, keeping the Republic of Moldova in a state of political and economic dependence on the former metropolis.
The economic and energy dependence on Russia continues, particularly due to the perpetuation of Transnistrian separatism, thanks to which the Kremlin uses gas supplies and trade to blackmail the Republic of Moldova. Every time Chisinau tries to move closer to the EU, Russia threatens to cut off resources or imposes embargoes on Moldovan products.
Romanianism - the path to Europe and modernization
Unlike the false Moldovanism promoted by Russia, the Romanian identity of the Republic of Moldova is not an artificial construct, but a historical and cultural truth. Accepting this truth does not mean renouncing national sovereignty, but a reconnection with the authentic roots of the people on the left bank of the Prut, a return to the logic of historical development, interrupted by the imperial abduction of this territory between 1812 and 1940.
Assuming Romanianism is the only guarantee of modernization and European integration of the Republic of Moldova. On the other hand, when attempts are made to redefine the identity of Moldovan Romanians as a national minority, the danger of a Russian imperial revanchist revanchist reappears. If the Romanians are officially considered a national minority in the Republic of Moldova, this would implicitly mean that the Republic of Moldova is a state formed on the basis of another majority national identity, which contradicts the historical, cultural and linguistic reality. In this case, one could draw the absurd conclusion that the annexation of Bessarabia by the USSR in 1940 was not an occupation, but a liberation - which is contrary to the historical truth, recognized even by international documents and objective historians.
The Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact was a secret agreement between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, by which Bessarabia was assigned to the Soviet sphere of influence, and its occupation by the USSR in 1940 was an act of aggression and violation of Romania's sovereignty. The subsequent deportations, repression and policy of Russification are clear evidence that this was not a 'liberation' but a forced annexation with dramatic consequences.
Therefore, the idea that Romanians would be a national minority in the Republic of Moldova is not only a historical absurdity, but also a formulation which risks legitimizing, directly or indirectly, the Soviet and Russian propaganda theories about the 'liberation' of Bessarabia by the Soviets. It is a pity that this absurd thesis about the Romanian minority in the Republic of Moldova found a place in a public speech made recently by a high-ranking German dignitary. And this case raises a big question mark about the identity policy promoted in Chisinau, as well as about the effectiveness of diplomacy in Bucharest in correctly and fully informing its European Union partners about the true extent of the Romanian identity space. If Chisinau and Bucharest value national dignity, an official reaction of the two Romanian capitals is mandatory in order to correctly inform the international public opinion, including the German one, about the correct correction of the blunder about Romanians as a national minority in the Republic of Moldova.
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.
