This article reconsiders the manifestation of nationalism in the Republic of Moldova during the late Soviet period and early 1990s. Whereas dominant approaches have focused on the ethnic dimensions of the national movement, I argue that rural-urban identities also played a significant role in shaping political events and outcomes of the recent past by drawing on ethnographic research among participants in the “folkloric movement” within the arts and performance world. This movement coincided with the broader national movement of the 1980s and demonstrates the centrality of “villages” in the construction of an anti-Soviet “national” identity among ethnic Moldovans. In conclusion, the politics of nationalism must be understood in a wider framework that also accounts for the importance of non-ethnic forms of collective identity, such as villages, and that investigates how individual origins and social memory shape civic and political participation.
Charles King, The Moldovans: Romania, Russia, and the Politics of Culture (Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution Press, 2000), 169-70.
2.
Claus Neukirch , “National Minorities in the Republic of Moldova: Some Lessons Learned, Some Not?” South-East Europe Review (March 1999): 45-64.
3.
For an example of this problematization, see Michael Gondek, “One Nation, Two States: The Transition from the Moldovan Soviet Socialist Republic to the Independent Republic of Moldova and the Politics of Language” (master's thesis, Providence College, Rhode Island , 1997).
4.
I am using a rounded figure of 65 percent for the ethnic Moldovan population as recorded in the 1989 census; the 2004 census records a higher percentage (84 percent), but as the more recent data collection was fraught with difficulties, I err on the conservative side with the earlier figures. For a close linguistic consideration of the Romanian and Moldovan languages, see Donald Dyer, “The Making of the Moldavian Language,” in Studies in Moldovan: The History, Culture, Language and Contemporary Politics of the People of Moldova , ed. Donald Dyer ( Boulder, Colo.: East European Monographs, 1996).
5.
For accounts of the history and demands of the nationalist movement, see William Crowther, “ Moldova: Caught between Nation and Empire” in New States, New Politics: Building the Post-Soviet Nations, ed. Ian Bremmer and Ray Taras ( Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997); and Roman Solchanyk, “Ukraine, Belorussia, and Moldavia: Imperial Integration, Russification, and the Struggle for National Survival ,” in The Nationalities Factor in Soviet Politics and Society, ed. Lubomyr Hajda and Mark Beissiger (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1990).
6.
The sense of paradox in Moldova's recent history is also heightened by the dominant historiographical approach of documenting the indisputable “Romanian” identity of Moldova's population and the illegitimacy of Soviet rule. Examples of often consulted histories of Moldova that take this approach include Michael Bruchis, One Step Back, Two Steps Forward: On the Language Policy of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in the National Republics (Moldavian: A Look Back, a Survey, and Perspectives, 1924-1980) (Boulder, Colo. : East European Monographs, 1982 ); Michael Bruchis , Nations— Nationalities—People: A Study of the Nationalities Policy of the Communist Party in Soviet Moldavia (Boulder, Colo.: East European Monographs, 1984); Nicholas Dima, Bessarabia and Bukovina: The Soviet-Romanian Territorial Dispute ( Boulder, Colo.: East European Monographs, 1982); and Nicholas Dima, From Moldavia to Moldova: The Soviet-Romanian Territorial Dispute (Boulder, Colo.: East European Monographs, 1991). These sources contain valuable information, but treat the question of political legitimacy externally as a choice between two alternative states; they do not treat the question of legitimacy itself as perceived internally and locally.
7.
Stuart Kaufman , “Spiraling to Ethnic War: Elites, Masses, and Moscow in Moldova's Civil War,” International Security21 (Fall 1996): 108-38.
8.
Most authors identify a constellation of mutually intersecting factors, including some (like elite politics) not listed separately above. For extended analyses, see King, The Moldovans; and Gondek, One Nation, Two States. The results of political opinion surveys given to Romanian citizens, ethnic Moldovans, and minority citizens of the Republic of Moldova are reported by William Crowther, “ The Construction of Moldovan National Consciousness” in Beyond Borders: Remaking Cultural Identities in the New East and Central Europe , ed. László Kürti and Juliet Langman (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1997).
9.
King, The Moldovans, 148-49, 166.
10.
Tom Gallagher , Romania after Ceausşescu ( Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1995), 187.
11.
Tom Gallagher , “Nationalism and Romanian Political Culture in the 1990s” in Post-Communist Romania: Coming to Terms with the Transition, ed. Duncan Light and David Phinnemore (Houndsmill , UK: Palgrave, 2001), 104-24.
12.
Irina Livezeanu , Cultural Politics in Greater Romania: Regionalism, Nation-Building, and Ethnic Struggle, 1918-1930 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1995), 100-1.
13.
Several authors report contemporary assessments of Romanian administration in Bessarabia; among them are King, The Moldovans, 41-51; and Livezeanu, Cultural Politics.
14.
The woman quoted above, for instance, speaks from a mix of perspectives. Born into a mixed Jewish-Moldovan family in the town of Călărasş, she now lives in the capital and self-identifies only as Moldovan. Although she was a factory worker, her sister's family is an intellectual family, with some members having been active in the nationalist movement.
15.
This anecdote should not be taken to reflect widespread favorable memories of the German presence in Moldova, however, as there are also many negative memories, including stories of family members having been abducted and sent to work in German factories. Rather, this “argument” should be interpreted as reflecting on the negative memories of both Russian-Soviet and Romanian rule. While individuals tend to portray one ruler as worse than the other (as with the man above who “preferred” Soviet rule), this particular discussion resolved itself in an agreement about what life should be like (orderly, clean, respect for women, and pay for goods and service) instead of a stalemate between the two sides.
16.
Folkloric involvement with late-Soviet nationalist movements was not isolated to Moldova; Padraic Kenney and Mary Doi document some of the other possible connections between folklore and nationalism in Ukraine and Uzbekistan, respectively. See Padraic Kenney, A Carnival of Revolution: Central Europe 1989 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2002); and Mary Doi, Gesture, Gender, Nation: Dance and Social Change in Uzbekistan (Westport, Conn.: Bergin and Garvey, 2002).
17.
For a longer discussion of the relationship between ethnicity and authenticity in these folkloric performances, see Jennifer Cash, “In Search of an Authentic Nation: Folkloric Ensembles, Ethnography, and Ethnicity in the Republic of Moldova” (Ph.D. diss., Indiana University , 2004).
18.
John Cole, “ Anthropology Comes Part-Way Home: Community Studies in Europe,” Annual Review of Anthropology6 ( 1977): 349-78; Joel Martin Halpern and David Kideckel, “ Anthropology of Eastern Europe,” Annual Review of Anthropology12 (1983): 377-402; Tamás Hofer, “Anthropologists and Native Ethnographers in Central European Villages: Comparative Notes on the Professional Personality of Two Disciplines,” Current Anthropology9, no. 4 (1968): 311-15; and Bela Maday, “Hungarian Anthropology: The Problem of Communication,” Current Anthropology9, nos. 2-3 (1968): 180-84.
19.
In accordance with the respondents' wishes, names have not been changed. It would, in addition, be futile to do so considering that these individuals are public figures and have achieved wide recognition for their artistic work. For consistency, however, I maintain the convention of replacing last names with an initial that was adopted by the Romanian publishers for the earlier version of this article.
20.
Tălăncuţa is the diminutive form of talancă and talangă, both Romanian words for the bell put on the necks of cows and sheep.
21.
R. A. French's analysis of urbanization throughout the Soviet Union suggests that the ongoing housing shortage worked to prevent the social stratification of cities, neighborhoods, and apartment buildings as much as, if not more than, planning strategies themselves. Although individuals tried to influence their housing placement, they were “thankful” to get whatever was offered. R.A. French , “The Individuality of the Soviet City ” in The Socialist City: Spatial Structure and Urban Policy, ed. R. A. French and F. E. IanHamilton ( Chichester, UK: Wiley, 1979), 98.
22.
King (in The Moldovans, 131-42) also points to the existence and importance of such networks in building the national movement.
23.
Gerhard Simon , Nationalism and Policy toward the Nationalities in the Soviet Union: From Totalitarian Dictatorship to Post-Stalinist Society , trans. Karen and Oswald Forster (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1991); and Ronald Suny, “State, Civil Society and Ethnic Cultural Consolidation in the USSR: The Roots of the National Question,” in The Soviet System: From Crisis to Collapse, ed. Alexander Dallin and G. W. Lapides (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1995).
24.
Simon, Nationalism and Policy.
25.
Mary Grace Swift , The Art of the Dance in the U.S.S.R. (Notre Dame, Ind.: Notre Dame Press, 1968), 204-20.
26.
Irina Livezeanu , “Urbanization in a Low Key and Linguistic Change in Soviet Moldavia, Part 1,” Soviet Studies33, no. 3 (1981): 335.
27.
Livezeanu, “Urbanization, Part 1,” 334.
28.
Livezeanu, Cultural Politics , 93-97.
29.
Irina Livezeanu , “Urbanization in a Low Key and Linguistic Change in Soviet Moldavia, Part 2,” Soviet Studies33, no. 4 (1981): 581.
30.
Maurice Halbwachs, On Collective Memory, ed. and trans. Lewis Coser (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992).
31.
Joëlle Bahloul, The Architecture of Memory: A Jewish-Muslim Household in Colonial Algeria , 1937-62 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 28.
32.
James Ferguson, “ The Country and the City on the Copperbelt” in Culture, Power, Place: Explorations in Critical Anthropology, ed. Akhil Gupta and James Ferguson (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1997).
33.
Translatable as the “sole of the earth,” the phrase talpa ţării refers to the peasantry, specifically reflecting the understanding that “in the past, [the peasantry] was considered the country's foundation, obliged to carry the full difficulty of duties”; see Dicţionarul Explicativ al Limbii Române (Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, 1998), 1068.
34.
During the summer of 2006, a young music teacher was musing on the differences she imagined to exist between the United States and Moldova. “You,” she concluded, “are Statele unite; we are satele unite” (“You are the United States; we are the united villages”). Retelling this anecdote to a group of historians after having presented my research to them, an older historian responded, “Indeed, our problem is that we are not as united as we should be.”
35.
Andrew Lass, “ From Memory to History: The Events of November 17 Dis/Membered” in Memory, History, and Opposition under State Socialism, ed. Rubie Watson (Santa Fe, N.M.: School of American Research Press, 1994).
36.
Eric Wolf, Europe and the People without History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982).
37.
Livezeanu, Cultural Politics .
38.
King, The Moldovans.
39.
Charles King , “The Politics of Language in Moldova, 1924-1994” (Ph.D. thesis, University of Oxford, 1995).
40.
Examples of the constructivist perspective include such often cited scholars as Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (New York: Verso, 1991); Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1983); and Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, eds., The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983). The commonality in these approaches is to view collective identities, particularly those of ethnic groups and nations, not as “givens” but as historical, cultural, political, sociological, and even economic artifacts produced under certain conditions. Modern states, in particular, are given primary control over creating, disseminating, and controlling national identities through the production of images and information. For this reason, Michael Herzfeld adds “imaged” to the list of modes (such as invention and imagination) in which nations are produced, reflecting the heavy emphasis that constructivists place on representation. Michael Herzfeld, “Localism and the Logic of Nationalistic Folklore: Cretan Reflections,” Comparative Studies in Society and History (2003): 281-310, 307 n. 19.
41.
Gellner, Nations and Nationalism , 56.
42.
Gupta and Ferguson, Culture, Power, Place.
43.
Alexander Motyl , “Inventing Invention: The Limits of National Identity Formation” in Intellectuals and the Articulation of the Nation, ed. Ronald Grigor Suny and Michael Kennedy (Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, 2001), 62.
44.
Royce's concept of “double boundaries” also speaks to these issues. She notes that ethnic groups do not have a single boundary but a double one, because members of an ethnic community use different and usually more subtle criteria to recognize their common identity than do outsiders who define them. Whereas outsiders tend to focus on common cultural traits (e.g., language), insiders may emphasize subtler issues involving the proper performance of group values. Anya Peterson Royce, Ethnic Identity: Strategies of Diversity (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982). In this respect, Spicer's discussion of persistent identities is also relevant, as he notes that for many groups, the cultural markers that initially distinguish them can change almost completely without the group losing its distinct identity. Again, cultural identity requires a combination of values and cultural elements through which those values can be embodied and communicated. Edward Spicer, “ Persistent Cultural Systems: A Comparative Study of Identity Systems that Can Adapt to Contrasting Environments,” Science174 (1971): 795-800.
