172-686: The Pridnestrovian Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic ( PMSSR ), also commonly known as Soviet Transnistria or simply as Transnistria , was created on the eastern periphery of the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (MSSR) in 1990 by pro-Soviet separatists who hoped to remain within the Soviet Union when it became clear that the MSSR would achieve independence from the USSR and possibly unite with Romania . The PMSSR
344-546: A coup d'état attempt to prevent him from signing the New Union Treaty in which Soviet Republics such as Moldova would gain more autonomy under the Union of Soviet Sovereign Republics . The PMSSR supported the failed coup attempt, which Moldova opposed. Throughout late 1991 and into early 1992, workers' battalions, increasingly the beneficiaries of weaponry from sympathetic Red Army officers and defections from among
516-658: A multi-party system . The majority in the supreme council belongs to the Renewal movement that defeated the Republic party affiliated with Igor Smirnov in 2005 and performed even better in the 2010 and 2015 elections. Elections in Transnistria are not recognised by international bodies such as the European Union , as well as numerous individual countries, who called them a source of increased tensions. There
688-642: A new republican flag based on the yellow, red and blue Romanian flag . This highly visible sign of defiance against the Soviet government served as the pretext for the first big showdown between the republican government in Chișinău and the OSTK-controlled soviets in Transnistria. Within three days, the Tiraspol city soviet announced that it did not accept the new flag. In the territory under its jurisdiction,
860-573: A "Grand National Assembly" in Chișinău's Victory Square outside of the Supreme Soviet building to show their support. Elsewhere in Chișinău and other cities, smaller rallies voiced opposition. The most effective opposition came in the form of a massive strike movement that originated in the Transnistrian city of Tiraspol. While the group Intermovement - " Unitate-Edinstvo " ("Unity") was the first to organize significant opposition to
1032-834: A 2005 agreement between Moldova and Ukraine , all Transnistrian companies seeking to export goods through the Ukrainian border must be registered with the Moldovan authorities . This agreement was implemented after the European Union Border Assistance Mission to Moldova and Ukraine (EUBAM) took force in 2005. In addition to the unrecognized Transnistrian citizenship, most Transnistrians have Moldovan citizenship, but many also have Russian, Romanian, or Ukrainian citizenship. The main ethnic groups are Russians, Moldovans/Romanians, and Ukrainians. Transnistria, along with Abkhazia and South Ossetia ,
1204-403: A Transnistrian court sentence him to death in 1992 for terrorism on behalf of the Moldovan state, is one such example. As head economist of one Tiraspol factory, he was derided as "head extremist" by coworkers before he was fired. His employer reinstated Ilaşcu after he protested with the city prosecutor, but he continued to clash with coworkers and local authorities as the city's branch chairman of
1376-811: A countermovement and looked to engineers and factory managers for leadership. Newly empowered by the weakened CPSU , and increasingly pressured by the ascendant movement for national reawakening, the Moldavian Supreme Soviet (which became the Moldovan legislature in June 1990) announced the creation of a body—the Interdepartmental Commission for the Study of the History and Problems of the Development of Moldovan—to research
1548-420: A different political entity and missed the years of creating a pan-Romanian national political consciousness. They identified as Moldovans speaking the language "Moldovan". This caused reactions from pan-Romanian nationalists. The concept of the distinction of Moldovan from Romanian was explicitly stated only in the early 20th century. It accompanied the raising of national awareness among Moldovans, with
1720-555: A distinction between Moldovan and Romanian , with one village declaring its language to be Romanian and another declaring it to be Moldovan , though Ukrainian officials have announced an intention to remove the legal status of Moldovan . On 16 November 2023, the Ministry of Education and Science of the Ukrainian government stated that it has initiated steps to abolish the Moldovan language and to replace it with Romanian. On 13 January 2024, Ukrainian newspaper Dumska reported that
1892-646: A group of Romanian linguists adopted a resolution stating that promotion of the notion of a distinct Moldovan language is an anti-scientific campaign. In 2003, the Parliament of the Republic of Moldova adopted a law defining Moldovan and Romanian as designations for the same language ( glottonyms ). In the 2004 census , 16.5% (558,508) of the 3,383,332 people living in Moldova declared Romanian as their native language, whereas 60% declared Moldovan. Most of
SECTION 10
#17327757144752064-601: A high school. The matter of whether or not Moldovan is a separate language continues to be contested politically within and beyond the Republic of Moldova. The 1989 Language Law of the Moldavian SSR , which is still in effect in Moldova, according to the Constitution, asserts a "linguistic Moldo-Romanian identity". Article 13 of the Moldovan Constitution used to name it "the national language of
2236-464: A historic holdover. Independent studies found a Moldovan linguistic identity asserted in particular by the rural population and post-Soviet political class. In a survey conducted in four villages near the border with Romania, when asked about their native language the interviewees identified the following: Moldovan 53%, Romanian 44%, and Russian 3%. In November 2007, when reporting on EU Council deliberations regarding an agreement between
2408-561: A large number of seats in the Republican Supreme Soviet (republican legislature) as well as the Chișinău city soviet while OSTK supporters won an overwhelming victory in the city soviets of the big cities in Transnistria. With the communist party severely weakened, the OSTK, in essence, took control of local government in Transnistria. The elections themselves were to unfold with an unprecedented level of freedom. Throughout
2580-480: A legal part of the Republic of Moldova. Only the partially recognised or unrecognised states of South Ossetia and Abkhazia have recognised Transnistria as a sovereign entity after it declared independence from Moldova in 1990 with Tiraspol as its declared capital. Between 1929 and 1940, Tiraspol functioned as the capital of the Moldavian ASSR , an autonomous republic that existed from 1924 to 1940 within
2752-430: A limited scale that broke out between Transnistrian separatists and Moldova as early as November 1990 at Dubăsari . Volunteers, including Cossacks , came from Russia to help the separatist side. In mid-April 1992, under the agreements on the split of the military equipment of the former Soviet Union negotiated between the former 15 republics in the previous months, Moldova created its own Defence Ministry. According to
2924-630: A meeting between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Romania Bogdan Aurescu and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Dmytro Kuleba , the former asked Ukraine to recognize the nonexistence of the Moldovan language to improve the situation of the Romanians in Ukraine . Kuleba responded to this saying that they were trying to do the paperwork for this as soon as possible. On 30 November 2022, during another meeting between Aurescu and Kuleba, Aurescu reiterated this request. This happened again during
3096-816: A meeting in Bucharest. Among the things that were discussed was the issue of the Romanian minority in Ukraine. Ciolacu said that Romania sought for the Romanians in Ukraine to have exactly the same rights as the Ukrainians in Romania and also for the removal of the Moldovan language from Ukrainian legislation. Starting from 1 September 2023, the high school in the village of Borysivka ( Borisăuca ) in Odesa Oblast , where Ukrainian Romanians study, replaced
3268-527: A meeting with representatives of the anti-strike committee of one enterprise," she told fellow central committee members. "They told me about how they heroically withstood pressure, blackmail, belittling, and insults during the strike from the Russophone population." Elsewhere, the OSTK even had to give in to resistance. On 26 August the director of a textiles factory in Rȋbniţa told the city strike committee that
3440-426: A phone call between the two ministers on 12 April 2023, after Moldova had legally changed its official language to Romanian. On 2 March 2023, the Moldovan parliament voted to replace the phrases "Moldovan language", "state language" and "official language" in Moldovan legislation with the phrase "Romanian language". The change was presented not as a constitutional change, but only a technical one, as it would implement
3612-436: A presence on the streets, but the communist party attempted to reassert its power in the area after being marginalized by the OSTK in the summer and fall. In both cases it was a tense winter as the communist party attempted to regain control of the republic in the face of revolts from two directions: one the national revivalists and the other to pro-Soviets. In October the communist party began attempting to reassert its power in
SECTION 20
#17327757144753784-485: A short, but bloody, war in late June 1992 . The war left the separatists in Tiraspol with de facto control over most of Transnistria and the west-bank city of Tighina (from now on known as Bender or Bendery). However, even as the Dniester Republic grew more established as a state, the end of 1991 brought with it the collapse of the state within which the OSTK activists had originally been striving to remain:
3956-402: A tenuous hold, however, on the city government of Dubasari and was a minority in some of the more rural districts. Throughout 1990, OSTK-controlled soviets in Transnistria battled with republican authorities in Chișinău, many of the latter also elected in 1990 and that on a platform of Moldovian national awakening. On 27 April 1990, the Supreme Soviet of Moldova took the symbolic step of adopting
4128-566: A total of 147 localities (including here those unincorporated). Six communes on the left bank ( Cocieri , Molovata Nouă , Corjova , Pîrîta , Coșnița , and Doroțcaia ) remained under the control of the Moldovan government after the Transnistria War of 1992, as part of the Dubăsari District . They are situated north and south of the city of Dubăsari, which itself is under PMR control. The village of Roghi of Molovata Nouă Commune
4300-430: A variety of issues—whether or not to create a Transnistrian state; which alphabet to use for the Moldovan language, which was to be defended; whether or not to accept the new Moldovan flag and others. Indeed, referendums constituted an act of defiance in and of themselves as the Moldovan government routinely declared the organization of such referendums illegal and routinely nullified the results. On September 2, 1990, in
4472-541: A year, and it was finished only after the War of Transnistria . The key participants in the creation of the PMSSR were almost entirely from the ranks of Soviet industrial workers and factory administration. Once the PMSSR had been created, the incipient government in Tiraspol fought an increasingly violent struggle for sovereignty with the Moldovan government in Chișinău. In August 1991, many of Gorbachev's advisors participated in
4644-469: Is Pridnestrovie ( Russian : Приднестровье , pronounced [prʲɪ.dʲnʲɪ.ˈstro.v⁽ʲ⁾je] ; Romanian : Nistrenia , Moldovan Cyrillic : Нистрения , pronounced [nis.tre.ni.ja] ; Ukrainian : Придністров'я , Prydnistrovia , pronounced [prɪ.ɟɲi.ˈstrɔu̯.jɐ] ), meaning "[land] by the Dniester". The Supreme Council passed a law on 4 September 2024 which banned
4816-670: Is Tiraspol . Transnistria is officially designated by the Republic of Moldova as the Administrative-Territorial Units of the Left Bank of the Dniester ( Romanian : Unitățile Administrativ-Teritoriale din stînga Nistrului ) or as Stînga Nistrului ("Left (Bank) of the Dniester"). The region's origins can be traced to the Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic , which was formed in 1924 within
4988-539: Is the M4 road from Tiraspol to Rîbnița through Dubăsari . The highway is controlled in its entirety by the PMR. North and south of Dubăsari it passes through land corridors controlled by Moldova in the villages of Doroțcaia, Cocieri, Roghi, and Vasilievca , the latter being located entirely to the east of the road. The road is the de facto border between Moldova and Transnistria in the area. Conflict erupted on several occasions when
5160-456: Is Moldovan. The state language is used in political, economic, social and cultural life and functions on the basis of the Latin alphabet ." However, it went on to promise protection of Russian and other languages of Moldova's minority populations. The passage of the language laws was accompanied by massive rallies outside the legislature building in Chișinău with upwards of 500,000 people gathered in
5332-766: Is a post-Soviet " frozen conflict " zone. These three partially recognised or unrecognised states maintain friendly relations with each other and form the Community for Democracy and Rights of Nations . In March 2022, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe adopted a resolution that defines the territory as under military occupation by Russia . The region can also be referred to in English as Dniesteria , Trans-Dniester , Transdniester or Transdniestria . These names are adaptations of
Pridnestrovian Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic - Misplaced Pages Continue
5504-502: Is also controlled by the PMR (Moldova controls the other nine of the 10 villages of the six communes). On the west bank, in Bessarabia, the city of Bender (Tighina) and four communes (containing six villages) to its east, south-east, and south, on the opposite bank of the river Dniester from the city of Tiraspol ( Proteagailovca , Gîsca , Chițcani , and Cremenciug ) are controlled by the PMR. The localities controlled by Moldova on
5676-514: Is based on, for 411 km; 255 mi) to the west, and Ukraine (for 405 km; 252 mi) to the east. It is a narrow valley stretching north–south along the bank of the Dniester river , which forms a natural boundary along most of the de facto border with Moldova. The territory controlled by the PMR is mostly, but not completely, conterminous with the left (eastern) bank of Dniester. It includes ten cities and towns, and 69 communes, with
5848-470: Is disagreement over whether elections in Transnistria are free and fair. The political regime has been described as one of "super- presidentialism " before the 2011 constitutional reform. During the 2006 presidential election, the registration of opposition candidate Andrey Safonov was delayed until a few days before the vote, so that he had little time to conduct an election campaign. Some sources consider election results suspect. In 2001, in one region it
6020-495: Is obliged to concentrate almost exclusively on lexical rather than grammatical differences. Whatever language distinctions may once have existed, these have been decreasing rather than increasing. King wrote in 2000 that "in the main, Moldovan in its standard form was more Romanian by the 1980s than at any point in its history". In 2002, the Moldovan Minister of Justice Ion Morei said that Romanian and Moldovan were
6192-416: Is unvarying all year round, although with a slight increase in the summer months. Transnistria is subdivided into five districts ( raions ) and one municipality, the city of Tiraspol (which is entirely surrounded by but administratively distinct from Slobozia District), listed below from north to south (Russian names and transliterations are appended in parentheses). In addition, another municipality,
6364-534: The 2004 census . In schools in Moldova, the term "Romanian language" has been used since independence. The variety of Romanian spoken in Moldova is the Moldavian subdialect , which is spread approximately within the territory of the former Principality of Moldavia (now split between Romania , Moldova and Ukraine ). Moldavian is considered one of the five major spoken varieties of Romanian. However, all five are written identically, and Moldova and Romania share
6536-476: The Administrative-Territorial Units of the Left Bank of the Dniester within the Republic of Moldova. According to the 2004 census, the population of Transnistria comprised 555,347 people, while at the 2015 census the population decreased to 475,373. In 2004, 90% of the population of Transnistria were citizens of Transnistria. Transnistrians may have dual, triple or even quadruple citizenship of internationally recognised countries, including: Fifteen villages from
6708-618: The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation , claimed that "the Romanian language should be renamed to Moldovan, and not the opposite". Romanian foreign minister Aurescu replied to this by saying, "This so-called Moldovan language does not exist, it is an artificial construct, which was created by the Soviet Union and has later been used by Russia for disinformation purposes". To this, Zakharova replied back by saying, "Sr. Bogdan Aurescu never existed either, but in
6880-531: The Romanian Academy in Romania declared that all the Moldovan words are also Romanian words, although some of its contents are disputed as being Russian loanwords . In Moldova, the head of the Academy of Sciences ' Institute of Linguistics, Ion Bărbuță, described the dictionary as "an absurdity, serving political purposes". Stati, however, accused both of promoting "Romanian colonialism". At that point,
7052-529: The Soviet police force offered excellent opportunities for oppositionists to challenge authorities in highly visible settings and disrupt events of premiere importance to the Soviet regime. Popular Front activists, often going beyond the official sanction of the movement leadership, organized actions that embarrassed the republican leadership, ultimately resulted in riots in Central Chișinău . This unrest sealed
Pridnestrovian Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic - Misplaced Pages Continue
7224-512: The Transnistria Governorate , with an area of 39,733 km (15,341 sq mi) and a population of 2.3 million inhabitants, was divided into 13 counties: Ananiev, Balta, Berzovca, Dubasari, Golta, Jugastru, Movilau, Oceacov, Odessa, Ovidiopol , Rîbnița, Tiraspol, and Tulcin. This expanded Transnistria was home to nearly 200,000 Romanian-speaking residents. The Romanian administration of Transnistria attempted to stabilise
7396-662: The Ukrainian SSR . During World War II , the Soviet Union took parts of the Moldavian ASSR , which was dissolved, and of the Kingdom of Romania 's Bessarabia to form the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1940. The present history of the region dates to 1990, during the dissolution of the Soviet Union , when the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic was established in hopes that it would remain within
7568-517: The flag of the Soviet Union was to be used until that time when the city soviet deputies could decide on permanent symbols. Although the Moldovan Supreme Soviet annulled this decision on May 4, the city soviets of Tighina and Rîbnița soon followed suit on the 5th and 8th respectively. The continued defiance prompted the Moldovan government to pass a law on May 10 making the acceptance of the new flag legally binding. However, although
7740-473: The 11 communes of Dubăsari District, including Cocieri and Doroțcaia that geographically are located on the east bank of the Dniester (in Transnistria region), have been under the control of the central government of Moldova after the involvement of local inhabitants on the side of Moldovan forces during the War of Transnistria. These villages, along with Varnița and Copanca , near Bender and Tiraspol, are claimed by
7912-503: The 1980s, Mikhail Gorbachev 's policies of perestroika and glasnost in the Soviet Union allowed political liberalisation at a regional level. This led to the creation of various informal movements all over the country, and to a rise of nationalism within most Soviet republics. In the Moldavian SSR in particular, there was a significant resurgence of pro-Romanian nationalism among Moldovans. The most prominent of these movements
8084-786: The 1991 Declaration of Independence of Moldova used the name Romanian . In 2003, the Moldovan parliament adopted a law defining Moldovan and Romanian as glottonyms for the same language. In 2013, the Constitutional Court of Moldova interpreted that Article 13 of the constitution is superseded by the Declaration of Independence, thus giving official status to the name Romanian . The breakaway region of Transnistria continues to recognize "Moldavian" as one of its official languages, alongside Russian and Ukrainian . Ukraine also continued until recently to make
8256-537: The 2013 decision of the Constitutional Court of Moldova. This change was supported by the ruling Party of Action and Solidarity and was strongly opposed by the Bloc of Communists and Socialists . The Academy of Sciences of Moldova also supported this decision. The bill was approved on its second and final reading on 16 March. This attracted criticism from Russia. Maria Zakharova , the spokeswoman for
8428-473: The Chernivtsi oblast indicated that a significant majority of the self-identified Moldovans thought that there was no difference between the Moldovan language and the Romanian language in that part of Ukraine. According to Alla Skvortsova, an ethnic Russian researcher from the Republic of Moldova, "Our survey found that while 94.4 percent of the Romanians living in Moldova consider Moldovan and Romanian to be
8600-494: The City of Bender, situated on the western bank of the Dniester, in Bessarabia, and geographically outside Transnistria, is not part of the territorial unit of Transnistria as defined by the Moldovan central authorities, but it is controlled by the PMR authorities, which consider it part of PMR's administrative organisation: Each of the districts is further divided into cities and communes. All UN member states consider Transnistria
8772-656: The Communist Party to that of the OSTK, it is important to note that Smirnov ran for the position of chairman of the city Soviet (head of local government) against the secretary of the city Communist Party committee; in the March 23rd session that decided the issue Smirnov took the chairmanship with 86 of the 134 votes, defeating Leonid Turcan with 64% of the vote. Events in Tighina and Rîbnița were similar, with OSTK leaders taking control of local government. The OSTK had only
SECTION 50
#17327757144758944-437: The Declaration of Independence takes precedence over the Constitution and that the state language should be called Romanian. By March 2017, the presidential website under Igor Dodon had changed the Romanian language option to Moldovan , which was described to be "in accordance with the constitution" by said president. The change was reverted on 24 December 2020, the day Maia Sandu assumed office. In June 2021, during
9116-408: The Dniester or Moldova (proper, without the Transnistrian separatist region) identified Moldovan or Romanian as their native language, of which 1,544,726 (55.1%) declared Moldovan and 639.339 (22.8%) declared it Romanian. According to the 2014 census, 2,720,377 answered to the question on "language usually used for communication". 2,138,964 people or 78.63% of the inhabitants of Moldova (proper, without
9288-478: The Dniester"). According to the Transnistrian authorities, the name of the state is the "Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic" (PMR) ( Russian : Приднестро́вская Молда́вская Респу́блика, ПМР , Pridnestróvskaya Moldávskaya Respúblika ; Romanian : Republica Moldovenească Nistreană, RMN , Moldovan Cyrillic : Република Молдовеняскэ Нистрянэ, РМН ; Ukrainian : Придністро́вська Молда́вська Респу́бліка, ПМР , Prydnistróvska Moldávska Respúblika ). The short form
9460-757: The Dubăsari-Cocieri area, when a confrontation between Moldovan and Transnistrian forces occurred, though without any casualties. June 2010 surveys indicated that 13% of Transnistria's population desired the area's reintegration into Moldova in the condition of territorial autonomy, while 46% wanted Transnistria to be part of the Russian Federation. Transnistria is a non-UN member state recognised as independent only by Abkhazia and South Ossetia, both being non-UN member states with limited recognition. Nina Shtanski served as Transnistria's Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2012 to 2015; Vitaly Ignatiev [ ru ] succeeded her as minister. In 2024 Vitaly Ignatiev
9632-662: The European Community and Moldova, the Romanian reporter Jean Marin Marinescu included a recommendation to avoid formal references to the "Moldovan language". The Romanian press speculated that the EU banned the usage of the phrase "Moldovan language". However, the European Commissioner for External Relations and European Neighbourhood Policy, Benita Ferrero-Waldner , denied these allegations. She said that
9804-470: The European Union, and thus less likely to enter negotiations for economic relief from Transnistria. Transnistria's vaguely worded request for "protection" from Russia has led to fears that, instead of offering economic aid, Russia will attempt to "annex" the region, as they did with occupied Ukraine in 2022 . Transnistria is landlocked and borders Bessarabia (the region the Republic of Moldova
9976-608: The MSSR, activists from a number of Tiraspol factories came together to create the United Work Collective Council ( Ob"edinnennyi Sovet trudovykh kollektivov , OSTK) and called an immediate strike that eventually led to the shutdown of most major industrial activity (concentrated in the Transnistrian region) throughout the SSR. The OSTK began using the STKs in the same way the party had used its cells. The peak of
10148-593: The Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine has stopped any additional printing of these textbooks. And also develops a mechanism for replacing previously printed copies with textbooks in the Romanian language.' On 13 January 2024, Ukrainian newspaper Dumska reported that the Ukrainian Ministry of Education and Science had announced all 16 schools in Odesa Oblast teaching "Moldovan" had dropped
10320-399: The Moldavian SSR in the following months on charges of collaboration with the Romanian occupiers. A later campaign directed against rich peasant families deported them to the Kazakh SSR and Siberia . Over the course of two days, 6–7 July 1949, a plan named "Operation South" saw the deportation of over 11,342 families by order of the Moldavian Minister of State Security, Iosif Mordovets. In
10492-428: The Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic and was quickly sovietized . In this process of collectivization and " dekulakization ", the left bank of the Dniester had a clear advantage: the territory had been collectivized during the First Five-Year Plan (FFYP) during the 1930s, it had enjoyed a reasonable amount of industrialisation , and boasted relatively experienced, trustworthy cadres. The MASSR had been formed on
SECTION 60
#173277571447510664-537: The Moldovan government held a working session in Dubăsari in the building of the raion soviet which was loyal to the central authorities in Chișinău. Moreover, many Transnistrian civil servants, including the police, employees of the public prosecutor's, and employees of the court system remained loyal to the government in Chișinău. These were often the targets of violence and intimidation as Transnistrian authorities attempted to take control of loyalist governmental institutions. Seizing these state institutions took more than
10836-447: The Moldovan language and to replace it with Romanian. The Ukrainian Ministry of Education stated: ‘The Government of Ukraine adopted a decision regarding the use of the term "Romanian language" instead of the term "Moldovan language" in Ukraine. Currently, work is underway to bring the current legislation of Ukraine in line with this decision, which includes many internal regulatory legal acts. Separately, we note that all further acts of
11008-421: The Moldovan language is referred to in the 1998 Cooperation Agreement between the EU and Moldova , and hence it is considered a part of the acquis , binding on all member states . The language was generally written in a Romanian Cyrillic alphabet (based on the Old Church Slavonic alphabet) before the 19th century. Both Cyrillic and, rarely, Latin, were used until after World War I ; after Bessarabia
11180-426: The Moldovan language refers to the historical evolution of the glottonym Moldavian / Moldovan in Moldova and beyond. It is closely tied to the region's political status, as during long periods of rule by Russia and the Soviet Union , officials emphasized the language's name as part of separating the Moldovans from those people who began to identify as Romanian in a different nation-building process. Cyrillic script
11352-401: The Moldovan language. He responded by saying that he did not see this as a global problem and that it was not an urgent issue for a country at war but that the Ukrainian government would meet in a week or two and that a solution to the issue "I'm sure everyone will be happy" with would be found. On 18 October, Ukrainian authorities promised to "resolve the issue of artificial separation between
11524-496: The Moldovan police refused to intervene or restore order. In the interest of preserving a unified Moldavian SSR within the USSR and preventing the situation escalating further, then Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, while citing the restriction of civil rights of ethnic minorities by Moldova as the cause of the dispute, declared the Transnistria proclamation to be devoid of a legal basis and annulled it by presidential decree on 22 December 1990. Nevertheless, no significant action
11696-530: The Moldovans had for centuries been interchangeably identified by both terms, but during the time of the Soviet Union , Moldovan , or as it was called at the time, Moldavian , was the only term officially recognized. Its resolution declared Moldavian a Romance language distinct from Romanian. While a majority of Moldovans with higher education, as well as a majority of inhabitants of the capital city of Chișinău , call their language Romanian , most rural residents indicated Moldovan as their native language in
11868-422: The OSTK, 21 (95 percent) of which won their seats. Of the 18 that did not mention the OSTK in their ads, only 3 (16 percent) won their seats. Moreover, in this election Igor Smirnov , (later to become in December 1991 the first president of the Pridnestrovian Moldovan Republic ), first successfully ran for public office. To illustrate the point that the election signalled the change in city leadership from that of
12040-517: The PMR prevented the villagers from reaching their farmland east of the road. Transnistrians are able to travel (normally without difficulty) in and out of the territory under PMR control to neighbouring Moldovan-controlled territory and to Ukraine. International air travellers rely on the airport in the Moldovan capital Chișinău , or the airport in Odesa , in Ukraine. The climate is humid continental with subtropical characteristics. Transnistria has warm summers and cool to cold winters. Precipitation
12212-469: The PMR. One city (Bender) and six villages located on the west bank (in Bessarabia region) are controlled by the PMR, but are considered by Moldova as a separate municipality (Bender and village of Proteagailovca ) or part of the Căușeni District (five villages in three communes). Tense situations have periodically surfaced due to these territorial disputes, such as in 2005, when Transnistrian forces entered Vasilievca, in 2006 around Varnița, and in 2007 in
12384-649: The People movement were outlawed at the beginning of 2000 and eventually dissolved. Moldovan language Moldovan or Moldavian ( Latin alphabet : limba moldovenească , Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet : лимба молдовеняскэ ) is one of the two local names for the Romanian language in Moldova . Moldovan was declared the official language of Moldova in Article 13 of the constitution adopted in 1994, while
12556-650: The Popular Front and the parliamentary leadership, or with the OSTK-led opposition. There was no significant correlation between apparatus work and either movement. In Transnistria, the OSTK was extremely successful, particularly in Tiraspol. Looking at the electoral ads run in the Tiraspol Dnestrovskaia Pravda reveals that of the 40 people who ran ads in that newspaper between January and March 1990, 22 (55 percent) mentioned membership of
12728-520: The Popular Front had considerably more allies. The Communist Party had a more disappointing if not insignificant showing, with 53 of the parliamentary seats going to members of the party apparatus and with its members comprising 83 percent of those elected. However, what is of interest to this chapter is that in 1990 as the republic polarized to the point of schism in September, those apparatus workers that were elected quickly aligned themselves with either
12900-417: The Popular Front of Moldova. In both Transnistria and western Moldova, the winter of 1989–1990 was strained. In Chișinău, a popular movement for national revival and national sovereignty was in full force. Activists defied the communist party openly and consistently and in some cases, communist officials and symbols were publicly attacked. In Transnistria, activists for the opposing social movement were less of
13072-412: The Republic of Moldova and Romania in the face of Kyiv but, at the same time, it marks only the beginning of a difficult, lasting process within the Ukrainian state." Thus, the Moldovan language would not have been derecognised by Ukraine on 18 October, this was only in process. On 16 November, the Ministry of Education and Science of the Ukrainian government stated that it has initiated steps to abolish
13244-560: The Romanian Academy's decision of 1993 and the orthographic reform of 2005. In 2000, the Moldovan Academy recommended adopting the spelling rules used in Romania, and in 2010 launched a schedule for the transition to the new rules that was completed in 2011 (regarding its publications). However, these changes were not implemented by Moldova's Ministry of Education, so the old orthographic conventions were maintained in
13416-472: The Romanian and "Moldovan" languages by implementing appropriate practical measures with due consideration of all legal aspects." Former Moldovan president Igor Dodon , as well as the Revival Party , have criticised this decision. According to an expert on Ukrainian affairs interviewed by the Romanian newspaper Libertatea , "Marcel Ciolacu's visit to Ukraine marked the end of a diplomatic effort by
13588-480: The Romanian colloquial name of the region, Transnistria , meaning "beyond the Dniester". The term Transnistria was used in relation to eastern Moldova for the first time in the year 1989, in the election slogan of the deputy and member of the Popular Front of Moldova Leonida Lari : I will throw out the invaders, aliens and mankurt over the Dniester, I will throw them out of Transnistria, and you,
13760-475: The Romanians, are the real owners of this long-suffering land ... We will make them speak Romanian, respect our language, our culture! The documents of the government of Moldova refer to the region as Stînga Nistrului (in full, Unitățile Administrativ-Teritoriale din Stînga Nistrului ) meaning "Left (Bank) of the Dniester" (in full, "Administrative-territorial unit(s) of the Left Bank of
13932-595: The Slavs (mainly Russians and Ukrainians) and Gagauz , to leave or be expelled from Moldova. On 31 August 1989, the Supreme Soviet of the Moldavian SSR adopted Moldovan as the official language with Russian retained only for secondary purposes, returned Moldovan to the Latin alphabet , and declared a shared Moldovan-Romanian linguistic identity. As plans for major cultural changes in Moldova were made public, tensions rose further. Ethnic minorities felt threatened by
14104-448: The Soviet Union elections in 1990 brought a rush of new blood into Soviet government and Moldova was no exception. The registration of candidates was done in a new and more open manner and candidates had an unprecedented freedom to campaign and distinguish themselves from competitors. All in all one specialist has judged the 1990 elections in Moldova to be relatively "quite open." When the votes were counted after February 25, republic wide,
14276-530: The Soviet Union should Moldova seek unification with Romania or independence, the latter occurring in August 1991. Shortly afterwards, a military conflict between the two parties started in March 1992 and concluded with a ceasefire in July that year. As a part of the ceasefire agreement, a three-party (Moldova, Russia, and Transnistria) Joint Control Commission and a trilateral peacekeeping force subordinated to
14448-567: The Soviet Union. Transnistria Transnistria , officially known as the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic and locally as Pridnestrovie , is a breakaway state internationally recognized as part of Moldova . It controls most of the narrow strip of land between the Dniester river and the Moldova–Ukraine border , as well as some land on the other side of the river's bank. Its capital and largest city
14620-485: The Soviets emphasizing distinctions between Moldavians and Romanians. Moldavian has also been recorded by the 1960s' Romanian Linguistic Atlas as the answer to the question "What [language] do you speak?" in parts of Western Moldavia ( Galați and Iași counties). Major developments since the fall of the Soviet Union include resuming use of a Latin script rather than Cyrillic letters in 1989, and several changes in
14792-418: The Supreme Soviet away from its intended course. The OSTK did receive some support from local politicians in the larger eastern cities (Tiraspol, Tighina, and Rîbnița). The city governments of all three cities appealed to the Moldovan Supreme Soviet to postpone making a decision on the language question. The leaders of the communist organization in these cities, however, claimed that they did this just to defuse
14964-406: The Tighina city soviet declared its intention to hold a referendum on the creation of the Dniester Republic. The Supreme Soviet again annulled this decision and forbade the holding of such a referendum. The republican government was, however, increasingly seeing the limits of its power to control lawmakers in Transnistria. Over the objections of the authorities in Chișinău, the Tighina city soviet held
15136-772: The Transnistrian demand to maintain a Russian military presence for the next 20 years as a guarantee for the intended federation. The 5+2 format (or 5+2 talks, comprising Transnistria, Moldova, Ukraine, Russia and the OSCE, plus the United States and the EU as external observers) for negotiation was started in 2005 to deal with the problems, but without results for many years as it was suspended. In February 2011, talks were resumed in Vienna , continuing through to 2018 with some minor agreements being reached. Moldova had, by 2023, dropped
15308-401: The Transnistrian position, which sought equal status between Transnistria and Moldova, but gave Transnistria veto powers over future constitutional changes, thus encouraging Transnistria to sign it. Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin was initially supportive of the plan, but refused to sign it after internal opposition and international pressure from the OSCE and US, and after Russia had endorsed
15480-431: The Transnistrian separatist region) have Moldovan/Romanian as first language, of which 1,486,570 (53%) declared it Moldovan and 652,394 (23.3%) declared it Romanian. In the Republic of Moldova, “more than half of the self-proclaimed Moldovans (53.5%) said that they saw no difference” between the Romanian and Moldovan languages according to a survey conducted by Pal Kolsto and Hans Olav Melberg in 1998. Opinion polling from
15652-483: The Ukrainian Ministry of Education and Science had announced all 16 schools in Odesa Oblast teaching "Moldovan" had dropped the term in favor of Romanian. On 16 March 2023, the Moldovan Parliament approved a law on referring to the national language as Romanian in all legislative texts and the constitution . On 22 March, the president of Moldova , Maia Sandu , promulgated the law. The language of
15824-550: The Ukrainian SSR. Although exercising no direct control over the territory of Transnistria, the Moldovan government passed the "Law on Basic Provisions of the Special Legal Status of Localities from the Left Bank of the Dniester" on 22 July 2005, which established part of Transnistria (territory of Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic without Bender and without territories, which are under control of Moldova) as
15996-680: The activism of the Moldovan Movement in Support of Restructuring—a movement of the intelligentsia oriented mostly towards generalized economic and political liberalization—and the Alexei Mateevici Literary-Musical Club, which pulled together prominent cultural and political figures, activists and citizens to celebrate and discuss the language, literature and history of the Moldovans. Cultural revival
16168-496: The annexed territory with part of the former Moldavian ASSR roughly equivalent to present-day Transnistria. In 1941, after Axis forces invaded the Soviet Union in the Second World War , they defeated the Soviet troops in the region and occupied it. Romania controlled the entire region between Dniester and Southern Bug rivers, including the city of Odesa as local capital. The Romanian-administered territory, known as
16340-518: The basis of what Terry Martin has termed the Soviet "Piedmont Principle": by creating a "homeland" for Moldovans across the Romanian border , the Soviet leadership hoped to advance their claims on Romanian territory. While the role of the MASSR in the Soviet Union's eventual incorporation of this land was negligible—the Soviet ultimatum to Romania did not mention the Moldovan nation, let alone use its right to national self-determination as justification for
16512-607: The big winner was the Popular Front of Moldova and their allies in the reformist wing of the Communist Party of Moldova . Of the 380 seats in the Supreme Soviet of the Moldovan Soviet Socialist Republic, the Popular Front would control 101, or about 27 percent. The internationalists had a strong showing as well, capturing almost 80 seats—21 percent. However, while both sides claimed the support of those not formally tied to their organizations,
16684-538: The changes appeared on the Constitution of Moldova. On 13 April, Romanian Foreign Minister Bogdan Aurescu requested the Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba to relinquish the recognition of the Moldovan language in Ukraine. However, as of June 2023, Ukraine still continues to make Moldovan-language schoolbooks. On 18 August, Prime Minister of Romania Marcel Ciolacu and Prime Minister of Ukraine Denys Shmyhal had
16856-461: The city government that the OSTK had decided to "take the responsibility on itself for the support of social order and discipline in production, and for the provision of normal life for the population of the city in the period of the deteriorating situation." In effect, the OSTK leveraged its popular support in factories and their neighborhoods as well as its institutional entrenchment to prod local government acting on their behalf in Chișinău and to warn
17028-460: The commission were created to deal with ceasefire violations. Although the ceasefire has held, the territory's political status remains unresolved: Transnistria is an unrecognized but de facto independent semi-presidential republic with its own government , parliament , military , police , postal system, currency , and vehicle registration. Its authorities have adopted a constitution , flag , national anthem , and coat of arms . After
17200-499: The country" (the original uses the phrase limba de stat , which literally means 'the language of the state') until 2023. In March 2023 the Parliament of Moldova has approved a law on referring to the national language as Romanian in all legislative texts and the constitution following the 2013 decision of the Constitutional Court of Moldova that gives primacy to the text of the 1991 Declaration of Independence of Moldova that calls
17372-472: The debates that accompanied the opening of political dialogue in the late 1980s. The first was concern for the ecologic devastation that was so characteristic of Soviet industrial society. The second, and increasingly ascendant concern revolved around the Moldovan language and whether it was distinct from the Romanian language or not, and national heritage, which many felt had been trammeled by Soviet and Russian domination. These concerns found expression in
17544-566: The decree of its creation, most of the 14th Guards Army 's military equipment was to be retained by Moldova. Starting from 2 March 1992, there was concerted military action between Moldova and Transnistria. The fighting intensified throughout early 1992. The former Soviet 14th Guards Army entered the conflict in its final stage, opening fire against Moldovan forces; approximately 700 people were killed. Moldova has since then exercised no effective control or influence on Transnistrian authorities. A ceasefire agreement, signed on 21 July 1992, has held to
17716-575: The eastern bank, the village of Roghi , and the city of Dubăsari (situated on the eastern bank and controlled by the PMR) form a security zone along with the six villages and one city controlled by the PMR on the western bank, as well as two ( Varnița and Copanca ) on the same west bank under Moldovan control. The security situation inside it is subject to the Joint Control Commission rulings. The main transportation route in Transnistria
17888-412: The eastern cities. During the strike, the city committees and city soviets of the eastern cities had allowed the OSTK to deeply insinuate itself into city government structures; after the strike, city communist leaders tried to take the initiative back into their own hands. For example, cooperation with the OSTK in the city soviets led deputies in Tiraspol, Tighina, and Rîbnița to suspend the introduction of
18060-590: The education sector such as in school textbooks. On 17 October 2016, Minister of Education Corina Fusu signed Order No. 872 on the application of the revised spelling rules as adopted by the Moldovan Academy of Sciences, coming into force on the day of signing. Since then the spelling used by institutions subordinated to the Ministry of Education is in line with the spelling norms used in Romania since 1993. This order, however, has no application to other government institutions, nor has Law 3462 been amended to reflect these changes; thus, those institutions continue to use
18232-472: The election in July and then used the results as a further justification for separatist action. This pattern continued throughout the year. Quickly moving down the unprecedented path of secession from a union republic, left-bank city and raion soviets needed a popular mandate to justify their extreme actions. They laid claim to this mandate through a referendum campaign that swept through the Dniester area in 1990. In this campaign, citizens were asked to vote on
18404-474: The end he was created. Now it is possible to call him an artificial construct." The president of Moldova, Maia Sandu, promulgated the law on 22 March. It was published on the Monitorul Oficial al Republicii Moldova [ ro ] ("Official Bulletin of the Republic of Moldova"), a state publication where all promulgated laws are published, on 24 March, thus entering into force. On 30 March,
18576-438: The end of August 1989, STKs had de facto control over their factories throughout much of Transnistria . Often they worked with or were dominated by, factory management. Occasionally, they effectively ousted unsympathetic directors or staff. Many that were to become active in the strike campaign had been suspicious of the language legislation from the beginning—they suspected this to be the first step towards "nationalization" of
18748-507: The establishment of legal and state relations, although the memorandum's provisions were interpreted differently by the two governments. In November 2003, Dmitry Kozak , a counselor of Russian president Vladimir Putin , proposed a memorandum on the creation of an asymmetric federal Moldovan state, with Moldova holding a majority and Transnistria being a minority part of the federation. Known as "the Kozak memorandum ", it did not coincide with
18920-501: The events that culminated in the creation of the Transnistrian state. Social mobilization came late to the eastern cities that became the centers of pro-Pridnestrovian activity (mid-1989) and it followed a different model than in did in western (Bessarabian) Moldova. Social mobilization in Tiraspol and Tighina (Bender) was mostly achieved through workplace networks called Work Collective Councils Work Collective Soviets ( sovety trudovykh kollektivov , STKs). The mobilization in Transnistria
19092-490: The explosive situation. For example, Evgenii Berdnikov of Rȋbniţa said "We could not stop this process," at a meeting with Moldovan First Secretary, Semion Grossu. "We were only trying to direct it out of the hands of incompetent people that play on people's emotions." The concession made, he explained, could be quietly dropped at a later time. While the strikes were extremely effective in paralyzing Moldovan industry, there were many instances were individuals and groups happy with
19264-592: The face of the Moldovan declaration of sovereignty from the Soviet Union and with a growing mandate from the referendum campaign sweeping the Dniester region, delegates to the Second Congress of Transnistrian Deputies announced the creation of the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic. With the declaration of the PMSSR, city and raion soviets throughout Transnistria convened plenums and discussed
19436-520: The factory committee was not in control of the situation. "Between the workers there had been fights and scandals. A part of the weavers, about 1000 people, want to return to work and the rest were against them." In light of the potentially explosive situation, the factory director asked the factory and city strike committees to consider reopening. In this case, the city strike committee conceded. Far more common, however, national revivalist individuals were isolated and vulnerable. Ilie Ilaşcu, famous for having
19608-547: The fate of the increasingly weak Moldovan First Secretary. At the end of a year that had seen Semion Grossu and his organization pummeled from both the national revivalist right and the "ultrarevolutionary" internationalist left, Moscow replaced the First Secretary in a snap Central Committee plenum in mid-November. The February 1990 elections proved to be a turning point in the conflict between Moldova and Transnistria. In these elections, Moldovian national revivalists won
19780-431: The first secretaries of the eastern cities convened plenums of the city committees and sessions of the city soviets. Some OSTK members were allowed to attend and participate, but Semion Grossu attended in order to keep an eye on the proceedings and make sure the sessions went as planned. The local communist party meetings called on the city soviets to bring local law into accordance with republican law and decisions adopted by
19952-429: The government in Chișinău. Occasionally rural loyalists expressed their opposition with appeals and rallies. This was the case on 16 September 1990 when a meeting against the PMSSR was held in the village Lunga, near Dubăsari, with participants from all over Transnistria. The loyalist raion soviets expressed their opposition by flying the Moldovan flag, and refusing to accept the jurisdiction of Tiraspol. On 17 September
20124-483: The government will be adopted considering the agreements. And all civil servants who allow violations of the government's decision will be subject to disciplinary action. The facts reported in the media regarding the printed textbooks refer to the copies approved for printing in May this year. The main edition of these textbooks was printed in the summer before the decision was made not to use the term "Moldovan language". Today,
20296-484: The identity of the Moldovan language and whether it was separate from the Romanian language or not, the alleged artificiality of the use of the Cyrillic alphabet for this supposed Moldovan language, and need for Moldovan to be given the status of official language of the republic. By June 1988, the Moldovan republican government began taking its cue from social movement leaders and discussing these issues, touching off
20468-438: The invasion—the former autonomous republic did provide a Soviet elite ready to assume leadership in the new union republic. In the second half of the 1980s, Mikhail Gorbachev set the political context for the war in Moldova and redefined the political process in the union republics with a series of reforms that comprised his program for perestroika . While intended to reinvigorate the Soviet system, perestroika also undermined
20640-460: The language identifiers as of 2013 to be used for the variant of the Romanian language also known as Moldavian and Moldovan in English, the ISO 639-2 Registration Authority said in explaining the decision. In 1989, the contemporary Romanian version of the Latin alphabet was adopted as the official script of the Moldavian SSR . The Declaration of Independence of Moldova (27 August 1991) named
20812-401: The language laws and deputies in Tiraspol and Rȋbniţa to agree to a referendum on the creation of a Transnistrian autonomous republic. Once the strike was over, however, communist leaders attempted to roll back these concessions. The republican communist party leaders in Chișinău were especially keen to see this happen and put pressure on local communists to repeal "illegal" decisions taken during
20984-430: The language legislation managed to win the day and keep their factories open. Moreover, some workers organized anti-strike committees to fight against the activities of the OSTK. Supreme Soviet Deputy from Tiraspol and firm supporter of the language laws, Leonida Dicusar, talked in September about the extreme pressure experienced by those brave few who worked to keep the factories open in the face of overwhelming odds. "I had
21156-449: The language legislation, more effective activity began in the workplace. STKs became the focus around which opposition activity turned in the early part of the conflict. In Transnistria, close-knit work collectives were ready-made institutional alternatives to the Communist Party cells—also omnipresent at the Soviet workplace. From 1989 to 1991, many Transnistrian party members handed in their party cards or simply stopped paying their dues. By
21328-470: The language question and make recommendations. Staffed as it was with Moldova's Romanianized cultural elite, the commission recommended the republican government accept all three points of the national revivalists' demands. (That is (1) the identity of the Moldovan and Romanian language, (2) the artificiality of the use of the Cyrillic alphabet for the Moldovan language, and (3) need for Moldovan to be given
21500-475: The latter responses were from rural populations. While the majority of the population in the capital city of Chișinău gave their language as "Romanian", in the countryside more than six-sevenths of the Romanian/Moldovan speakers indicated "Moldovan" as their native language, reflecting historic conservatism. Currently, 2,184,065 people or 80.2% of those covered by the 2014 census on the right bank of
21672-505: The local military personnel, grew better prepared than the loyalist Moldovan police in Transnistria. Police stations were captured, policemen were evicted, and in extreme cases workers' battalions and police traded fire. Skirmishes in November 1990, and September and December 1991 witnessed continued Moldovan inability to reassert sovereignty in the region. Throughout the first half of 1992 the violence continued to escalate and culminated in
21844-507: The local soviets supported acceptance of the language laws in Transnistria. Communist-run state media also criticized the OSTK and local communists attempted to shut down OSTK newspapers, a measure that prevented the organization from putting out its publication for much of late 1989. The situation was even more tense in Chișinău in late 1989. Festivals on 7 November commemorating the Russian Revolution and 10 November celebrating
22016-539: The majority prevailed with the support of only 49 of the 86 deputies (57%). While results were more one sided elsewhere, everywhere confusion abounded. Many governmental institutions—the police, public prosecutors, judges—remained loyal to the government in Chișinău; some enterprises or villages defected from one local soviet to another to end up on the right side; paramilitary men competed with police to provide law and order, and during 1991 began attempting to evict them from their former stations. Even in Tiraspol, consolidation
22188-499: The national language Romanian. The law was approved by the parliament on 16 March, and the President of Moldova promulgated the law on 22 March. In the breakaway region of Transnistria , Moldovan is declared an official language, together with Ukrainian and Russian . Standard Moldovan is widely considered to be identical to standard Romanian. Writing about "essential differences", Vasile Stati , supporter of Moldovenism ,
22360-574: The official name of the language back to Romanian ; the Moldovan Parliament, dominated by the Democratic Agrarian Party and various far left forces, dismissed the proposal as promoting "Romanian expansionism". In 2003, a Moldovan–Romanian dictionary ( Dicționar Moldovenesc–Românesc (2003)) by Vasile Stati was published aiming to prove that there existed two distinct languages. Reacting to this, linguists of
22532-580: The official alphabet in Moldova (then Moldavian SSR ). In 1989, the Latin script was once again adopted in Moldova by Law 3462 of 31 August 1989, which provided rules for transliterating Cyrillic to Latin, along with the orthographic rules used in Romania at the time. Transnistria, however, uses the Cyrillic alphabet. Though not immediately adopting these, the Academy of Sciences of Moldova acknowledged both
22704-510: The official language as "Romanian". The 1994 constitution, passed under a Communist government, declared "Moldovan" as the state language. When in 1993 the Romanian Academy changed the official orthography of the Romanian language, the Institute of Linguistics at the Academy of Sciences of Moldova did not initially make these changes, which however have since been adopted. In 1996, the Moldovan president Mircea Snegur attempted to change
22876-401: The passage of the language legislation—but it did provide a watershed in Transnistrian history; after the strike, the left bank of the Dniester, and in particular the city of Tiraspol, were essentially controlled by a group of engineers and factory managers hostile to the government in Chișinău, a group that controls Transnistria to this day. In the days immediately before the language legislation
23048-475: The perestroika reforms. They were intended to foster democratization and increase efficiency in Soviet industry. However, they were also ready-made forums for debate and provided a structure which activists used to take control of Moldovan industry in late 1989. The national revivalist movements were created essentially from scratch and led by cultural figures. The "internationalist" (pro-Soviet) movement in Transnistria took advantage of workplace institutions to build
23220-439: The police and the court system were largely still loyal to the government in Chișinău, Supreme Soviet deputies were not willing to provoke the sort of outcry that would certainly have arisen if Moldovan officials had gone as far as arresting leading Transnistrian politicians. In the event, the Supreme Soviet continued to fume as events continued to progress in Transnistria. However, it was at a loss as to how to stop them. In mid-May,
23392-473: The possibility of integrating themselves into the new republic. While many of the soviet deputies were those same delegates that participated in the Second Congress, these votes were not always uncontested affairs; in the case of the Dubossary raion , the soviet refused to place itself under the jurisdiction of the Dniester state. In the Dubossary city soviet, an organ with OSTK preponderance but not dominance,
23564-477: The present day. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) is trying to facilitate a negotiated settlement. Under OSCE auspices, on 8 May 1997, Moldovan President Petru Lucinschi and Transnistrian President Igor Smirnov , signed the "Memorandum on the principles of normalization of relations between the Republic of Moldova and Transnistria", also known as the "Primakov Memorandum", sustaining
23736-627: The prospects of removing Russian as the official language , which served as the medium of interethnic communication, and by the possible future reunification of Moldova and Romania, as well as the ethnocentric rhetoric of the PFM. The Yedinstvo (Unity) Movement, established by the Slavic population of Moldova, pressed for equal status for both the Russian and Moldovan languages. Transnistria's ethnic and linguistic composition differed significantly from most of
23908-488: The republic at the expense of "their country," the Soviet Union. However, on 10 August 1989 I. M. Zaslavskii, a deputy to the Moldavian Supreme Soviet and resident of the Transnistrian city of Tiraspol, leaked a new draft of the law to the factory newspaper of the "Tochlitmash" Tiraspol Machine-Building Factory im. Kirova. Seeing that the new version would establish Moldovan as the only official language of
24080-568: The republic; their numbers almost doubled within four days." This level of mobilization was not long sustained. In part convinced that the language legislation would not be repealed, and in part reassured by the sympathetic conclusions of a commission sent by the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union , the OSTK (temporarily embodied in the United Republican Strike Committee) decided to end the strike on 15 September 1989. The strike failed in its immediate goal—to prevent
24252-432: The rest of Moldova. The proportion of ethnic Russians and Ukrainians was especially high and an overall majority of the population, some of them Moldovans, spoke Russian as their mother tongue. The nationalist PFM won the first free parliamentary elections in the Moldavian SSR in early 1990, and its agenda started slowly to be implemented. On 2 September 1990, the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (PMSSR)
24424-539: The same literary language . The standard alphabet used in Moldova is equivalent to the Romanian alphabet , which uses the Latin script . Until 1918, varieties of the Romanian Cyrillic alphabet were used. The Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet (derived from the Russian alphabet and standardised in the Soviet Union) was used in 1924–1932 and 1938–1989 and remains in use in Transnistria. The history of
24596-520: The same language and that the Constitution of Moldova should be amended to reflect this—not by substituting Romanian for the word Moldovan , but by adding that "Romanian and Moldovan are the same language". The education minister Valentin Beniuc said: "I have stated more than once that the notion of a Moldovan language and a Romanian language reflects the same linguistic phenomenon in essence." The president of Moldova Vladimir Voronin acknowledged that
24768-429: The same language, only half of the Moldovans (53.2 percent) share this view". In schools in Moldova, the term Romanian language has been used since independence. In December 2007, Moldovan president Vladimir Voronin asked for the term to be changed to Moldovan language , but due to public pressure against that choice, the term was not changed. In December 2013, the Constitutional Court of Moldova ruled that
24940-587: The situation in the area under Romanian control, implementing a process of Romanianization . During the Romanian occupation of 1941–44, between 150,000 and 250,000 Ukrainian and Romanian Jews were deported to Transnistria; the majority were murdered or died from other causes in the ghettos and concentration camps of the Governorate. After the Red Army advanced into the area in 1944, Soviet authorities executed, exiled or imprisoned hundreds of inhabitants of
25112-594: The situation, and in 2024 the Supreme Council was convened for the first time since 2006, with the council requesting economic assistance from Russia, and stating that Moldova was actively committing a genocide in the region. The harsh language towards Moldova, coupled with the Russian-backed Șor protests , and an attempted coup plotted by the Wagner Group has shifted Moldova further towards
25284-469: The state language and push the Supreme Soviet to recognize the identity of Moldovan and Romanian while opponents mobilized to protect the legal status quo. A further draft leaked in August further escalated tensions because its opponents believed that it was even more pro-nationalist and radical than the first draft. The law was passed in a stormy Supreme Soviet session on 31 August 1989. It declared that "The state language of Moldovan Soviet Socialist Republic
25456-419: The status of official language of the republic. See above.) Armed with these recommendations, the Supreme Soviet asked for the draft legislation to be presented in March for "public discussion" of the proposals "before the next session of the Supreme Soviet" in August. This move did nothing to diffuse the inevitable tension involved with the very project. Proponents mobilized to expand the legally protected role of
25628-546: The statutory name of the official language used in Moldova. At one point of particular confusion about identity in the 1990s, all references to geography in the name of the language were dropped, and it was officially known simply as limba de stat — 'the state language'. Moldovan was assigned the code mo in ISO 639-1 and code mol in ISO 639-2 and ISO 639-3 . Since November 2008, these have been deprecated, leaving ro and ron (639-2/T) and rum (639-2/B),
25800-417: The strength of key institutions which provided for central control of the Soviet Union. Inadvertently undermining the power of the communist party, Gorbachev set the stage for a devolution of power into a federated state structure which essentially resulted in the devolution of power to the governments of the fifteen Soviet republics. This devolution of centralized power to republican legislatures ( "soviets" in
25972-592: The strike movement came in September 1989 in the immediate aftermath of the MSSR Supreme Soviet's passage of the language legislation. Vladimir Socor, analyst for the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, places the total number of strikers in the MSSR at close to 200,000, writing, "By August 29, when the session of the Moldavian Supreme Soviet convened, more than 100,000 workers and employees at over 100 enterprises were on strike in
26144-591: The strike. In a meeting in October, Associate Chair of the Presidium of the Moldovan Supreme Soviet, Victor Pușcaș , in the presence of Communist Party First Secretary, Semion Grossu , berated local communists for losing control of the situation in Transnistria. It would look better for the city soviets to repeal all illegal decisions by themselves, he concluded. "However," he warned, "if you cannot get them to repeal these resolutions, we will do it for them." Back home,
26316-405: The term "Moldovan language" with "Romanian language" in its curriculum. On 10 October, during a meeting between Ciolacu and President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy , Ciolacu once again requested that the Ukrainian authorities stop recognizing the existence of the Moldovan language. On the same day, during a meeting with Romanian journalists, Zelenskyy was asked if Ukraine would stop recognising
26488-567: The term 5+2 in diplomatic discussions. After the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation in March 2014, the head of the Transnistrian parliament asked to join Russia . After the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Ukraine sealed its border with Transnistria, which had been the primary route for goods to enter the region. As such, Transnistria is wholly reliant on Moldova to allow imports through its own border. Transnistrian politicians have grown increasingly anxious about
26660-514: The term in favor of Romanian. However, Anatol Popescu, president of the Bessarabia National–Cultural Association, reported that in the Romanian school of Utkonosivka [ ro ; uk ] ( Erdec-Burnu ), the term had been replaced with "language of the national minority" instead, protesting against this and against other issues that had been reported regarding the school's intended renaming and reorganization into
26832-574: The terminology of the Soviet Union) was matched by a simultaneous explosion of mass participation in the now open debate about the Soviet future. In the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic, as elsewhere in the Soviet Union, political activity was expressed in various ways, including by organizing groups and clubs independent of the government that had long withheld the right of association to any sort of civil organization. Two sets of concerns were particularly prominent in
27004-559: The time formed part of the Kingdom of Romania . One of the reasons for the creation of the Moldavian ASSR was the desire of the Soviet Union at the time to eventually incorporate Bessarabia. On 28 June 1940, the USSR annexed Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina from Romania under the terms of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact , and on 2 August 1940 the Supreme Soviet of the USSR created the Moldavian SSR by combining part of
27176-420: The two languages are identical, but said that Moldovans should have the right to call their language "Moldovan". In the 2004 census , of the citizens living in Moldova, 60% identified Moldovan as their native language; 16.5% chose Romanian. While 37% of all urban Romanian/Moldovan speakers identified Romanian as their native language, in the countryside 86% of the Romanian/Moldovan speakers indicated Moldovan,
27348-435: The use of the term "Transnistria" within the region, imposing a fine of 360 rubles or up to 15 days imprisonment for using the name in public. In 1924, the Moldavian ASSR was proclaimed within the Ukrainian SSR . The ASSR included today's Transnistria (4,100 km ; 1,600 sq mi) and an area (4,200 km ; 1,600 sq mi) to the northeast around the city of Balta , but nothing from Bessarabia , which at
27520-475: Was a reaction to the national revivalist mobilization in Bessarabian Moldova. Russian-speaking workers in the eastern factories and Moldovans with a strong identification with the Soviet state used work collective councils to organize opposition to national revivalists in the Moldovan capital. The councils were created throughout the Soviet Union in 1987 with the "Law on State Enterprises" as part of
27692-494: Was ceded to the Soviet Union as a result of an ultimatum , it was combined with a strip of land on the left bank of the Dniester which had formed the nucleus of a Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (MASSR), an autonomous republic of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic with Tiraspol as its executive capital, throughout the interwar period . The newly fused territory became
27864-411: Was considered by the Moldovan Supreme Soviet the OSTK began issuing a series of very credible threats to the local and republican leadership. At the same time as it was organizing industrial strikes the central committee of the OSTK began sending resolutions to the local government of Tiraspol demanding that the city leadership recognize and support OSTK control over factories and eventually flatly informed
28036-558: Was declared wanted by the Security Service of Ukraine due to suspicion of collaboration and encroachment on the territorial integrity of Ukraine. Transnistria is a semi-presidential republic with a powerful presidency. The president is directly elected for a maximum of two consecutive five-year terms. The current President is Vadim Krasnoselsky . The Supreme Council is a unicameral legislature. It has 43 members who are elected for 5-year terms. Elections take place within
28208-434: Was in use. From a linguistic perspective, Moldovan is an alternative name for the varieties of the Romanian language spoken in the Republic of Moldova (see History of the Romanian language ). Before 1918, during the period between the wars, and after the union of Bessarabia with Romania , scholars did not have consensus that Moldovans and the Romanians formed a single ethnic group. The Moldovan peasants had grown up in
28380-405: Was included in Romania in 1918, the Cyrillic alphabet was officially forbidden in the region. In the interwar period , Soviet authorities in the Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic alternately used Latin or Cyrillic for writing the language, mirroring the political goals of the moment. Between 1940 and 1989, i.e., during Soviet rule, the new Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet replaced Latin as
28552-570: Was just one of the issues championed by such informals in early 1988. However, during the course of that year events around the Soviet Union, and particularly the bloody clashes between Armenians and Azerbaijanis in Nagorno-Karabakh and the pogrom against Armenians in Sumgait , brought issues of ethnicity increasingly to the fore in the union press. In Moldova, social movements increasingly began to focus on three issues involving language:
28724-404: Was never recognised as a Soviet republic by the authorities in either Moscow or Chișinău . In 1991, the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic succeeded the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic. The Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic from which the PMSSR seceded was created in 1940 following the Soviet annexation of territory belonging to the Kingdom of Romania . When Bessarabia
28896-621: Was proclaimed as a Soviet republic by an ad hoc assembly, the Second Congress of the Peoples' Representatives of Transnistria, following a successful referendum . Violence escalated when in October 1990 the PFM called for volunteers to form armed militias to stop an autonomy referendum in Gagauzia , which had an even higher proportion of ethnic minorities. In response, volunteer militias were formed in Transnistria. In April 1990, nationalist mobs attacked ethnic Russian members of parliament, while
29068-512: Was reported that Igor Smirnov collected 103.6% of the votes. The PMR government said "the government of Moldova launched a campaign aimed at convincing international observers not to attend" an election held on 11 December 2005 – but monitors from the Russian-led Commonwealth of Independent States election monitors ignored that and declared the ballot democratic. The opposition Narodovlastie party and Power to
29240-491: Was taken against Transnistria and the new authorities were slowly able to establish control of the region. Following the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt , the Pridnestrovian Moldavian SSR declared its independence from the Soviet Union. On 5 November 1991 Transnistria abandoned its socialist ideology and was renamed "Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic". The Transnistria War followed armed clashes on
29412-413: Was the Popular Front of Moldova (PFM) . In early 1988, the PFM demanded that the Soviet authorities declare Moldovan the only state language, return to the use of the Latin alphabet, and recognise the shared ethnic identity of Moldovans and Romanians. The more radical factions of the PFM espoused extreme anti-minority, ethnocentric and chauvinist positions, calling for minority populations, particularly
29584-516: Was to take upwards of a year. While the PMSSR was popular in Transnistria's cities, there was considerable opposition in rural communities. While OSTK supporters took control of city soviets in 1990, this was not the case in most of the raion soviets with their agricultural constituencies. The new leadership of the Grigoriopol raion soviet did not support the separatist movement and the new Dubossary and Slobozia raion soviets actively supported
#474525