U.S. English Foundation Research
MOLDOVA
Language Research
2. Background: Background notes
Present-day Moldova comprises a large part of the eastern half of the historic principality of Moldavia. At its largest extent, in the Middle Ages, the principality stretched from the Dniester River in the east almost to the Carpathian Mountains in the west. Much of the eastern half of Moldavia, between the Prut and Dniester rivers, was traditionally known as Bessarabia (Bessarabiya). Moldavian territory was divided in 1812, when the Ottoman Empire took control of all the land west of the Prut River and Russia took control of the rest. The Russian government gave the name Bessarabia to the territory under its control so as to distinguish it from the neighboring Ottoman-controlled Moldavia.
In 1918 Bessarabia became independent and then united with Romania. Troops of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR, the successor to the Russian Empire) occupied Bessarabia in 1940. The Soviet government joined most of Bessarabia to part of the already existing Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (ASSR), across the Dniester River, to form the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic. Romania regained Bessarabia in 1941 but lost it again to the USSR in 1944. When the USSR collapsed in 1991, the republic became the independent country of Moldova. Although independent from the USSR since 1991, Russian forces have remained on Moldovan territory east of the Nistru (Dniester) River. The Russians claim to be supporting the Slavic majority population (mostly Ukrainians and Russians) who has proclaimed a "Transnistria" republic. In addition to the region of Bessarabia, present-day Moldova also includes territory along the left bank of the Dniester known as Trans-Dniester. The remainder of the historic principality of Moldavia is now part of Romania and the Ukraine.
After declaring independence in 1991, Moldova signed the agreement which helped establish the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), an organization composed of former Soviet republics. Moldova became a formal member of the CIS in 1994. That year the country adopted its first post-Soviet Constitution. In the early 1990s secessionist movements among certain ethnic groups took hold in the Trans-Dniester region and in the Gagauz region in the south.
The country remained divided (during 1999), with mostly Slavic separatists controlling the Transnistrian region along the Ukrainian border. This separatist regime has entered into negotiations with the national Government on the possibility of a special status for the region. Progress in resolving the ongoing conflict has been blocked by the separatists' continuing demands for "statehood" and recognition of the country as a confederation of two equal states. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the Russian Federation and the Ukraine act as mediators. The two sides generally have observed the cease-fire of 1992, which ended armed conflict between them, but other agreements to normalize relations often have not been honored. A Christian Turkic minority, the Gagauz, enjoys local autonomy in the southern part of the country. The Gagauz elected a new governor (bashkan) and 35 deputies to their popular assembly in free and fair elections in September 1999.
Declaration on state sovereignty signed on August 27, 1991
Note: Moldova is the Romance-language term for what, in Soviet times, was called Moldavia and what, historically, is Central Bessarabia-a territory between the rivers Prut in the West and Dniester in the East.
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Updated (October 2002)
The representatives of the following nationalities live in Moldova: Russians, Ukrainians, Bulgarians, Gagauz, Jews, Gypsies, Poles, and Germans. In comparison with the other states, representatives of the national minorities in Moldova do not constitute majority in certain area. Meanwhile, 90 percent of the Russian minority live in the urban areas, Ukrainians can be found in both urban and rural places.
Ethnic Russians and Ukrainians are descendants of peasants who settled in Bassarabia in 19th and early 20th Century. Many came during the "Soviet Union period." Bulgarians and Christian Turkic people (Gagauz people) moved from the Balkan to Bassarabia after 1812 (the Russian annexation).
In 1940, the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic was created after annexation of Bessarabia to the Soviet Union. The policy in the republic focused on "russification," to deny the fact that Moldovans and Romanians had been one nation, separated because of territorial claims by the Soviet Union. The first step after 1941 was to reform the Romanian script from the Latin to the Cyrillic alphabet. A cohort of linguists worked to prove that the Moldavian language was independent of Romanian. One thesis said that Moldavian was an independent Eastern Roman language (Sergievski), another one proclaimed that because of intense contacts between Moldavians with Russians and Ukrainians, the formerly Roman language was transformed into a Slavic one (Ceban).
Being a part of the Soviet Empire, the basic education was possible in the national languages, but for higher education profound knowledge of the Russian language was necessary. So anyone, who wanted to improve his social status, had to learn Russian and thus adapt to Russian culture.
In the middle of 1960s, the situation deteriorated when tensions arose in the external relations between Romania and the Soviet Union and an anti-Romanian campaign was organized. Romanian books and films were prohibited, exchange programs were no longer possible. Russian became the official language, used especially in the administrative and economic sector. The share of non-Moldavian population was much higher in urban than in rural areas, and Russian was more or less a common language for all non-Russian nationalities in the Soviet Union.
The socio-linguistic situation started to change at the time of perestroika, launched by M. Gorbachov. Already in 1988, a commission on behalf of the Communist Party of Moldova investigated the necessity and worked out a concept for a possible language reform. Finally, two laws were passed in August 1989: the Law on the Status of the State Language in the Moldavian Socialist Soviet Republic and the Law on the Functioning of Languages on the Territory of the Moldavian Socialist Soviet Republic. The task of these laws was to correct the language policy "imposed by Moscow," and to stress the independence of Moldovan and Russian culture.
Thus, the Moldovan language was declared the state language, used in the political, economic, social and cultural sector. The Gagauz language became the second state language in the areas with a high proportion of Gagauz population. The Russian language was declared a language of communication among nationalities. The "degradation" of the Russian language was one of the reasons for the conflict in the Transnistria region,1 which is mainly inhabited by non-Moldovan speakers. Identicalness of the Romanian and Moldovan languages was officially recognized and the Cyrillic script was replaced by Latin.
At the end of 1980s another separatist movement, acting in a strong concert with the Transnistrian separatists, emerged by Gagauz. The Gagauz-Halki (people of Gagauz) who had colonized the south of the country in the 18th and 19th Centuries also asked for self-determination for their 157,000 people.
Eventually, with changes in the leadership of the Republic of Moldova in 1994, the Gagauz backed away from their demands and accepted the legal authority of the Moldovan Government. A law had been passed that gave the Gagauz a special autonomy status, known as Territorial Administrative Unit of Gagauz-Yeri, as well as the right to declare independence if Moldova would change its political statutes regarding Gagauzia. Under the Constitution, Gagauzia received a large cultural and administrative autonomy that allowed it to preserve its cultural traditions and costumes, including the language.
Source: World Congress on Language Policies, Barcelona, April 16-20, 2002, "The Republic of Moldova: Dimension of the Gagauz socio-linguistic model," by Ana Coretchi (Moldova), Ana Pascaru (Moldova), C. Stevens (USA), http://www.linguapax.org/congres/taller/taller3/ article15_ang.html
1 A major split created between Moldovan and Russian-speaking population, including Russians, Ukrainians, Gagauz and Bulgarians, especially after Moldovan was declared the state language (1989) resulted that Russians proclaimed illegally the Transnistrian Moldovan Republic on the left bank of the Nistru River.
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