Last 24 hours in Moldova

Moldova and the EU

AP came to talk about Moldova's EU policy. This guy knows his stuff, is eloquent, smart, and he excellently juggles with ideas. It was very obvious that he lived in America for some years- his presentation style was indeed very American. He may not have guessed where we are coming from (as he bragged he would) and he failed both to identity Italian accents in English and to realize that I am Romanian, but he got everything else right... The main point was that Moldova is now in a very difficult position, as it is not even considered eligible for EU candidate status, being placed on the same level with Morocco and Tunisia. Chiara and I ignited a new thread of conversation and so we also talked about labor migration, finding out that most people actually go to Russia, followed by Italy, Spain, and Portugal.

He asked who led the workshop on Moldovan history, and when he found out, he started telling us about it from scratch... This time an accurate historical portrait, with a correct map, no fake names nor years, and all the perspectives included. The debate on Transylvania that Costa provoked made me realize how difficult must be for Moldovans, who have to fight anyway with their delicate identity issues, to get that back in time , to the time of the origins.... He explained how most Moldovans feel they are Moldovans and not Romanians, and only in the category of intellectuals, some 60% would consider themselves to be Romanian.

Identity and accountability

I came to Moldova quite curious on what people think about their identity. I asked sometimes the direct, blunt question. The answers were sometimes clear, sometimes effusive like " You know what we are. " or " We all know in our hearts where we come from", trying to lead me think , maybe, that they thought they were Romanian, but nevertheless so open-ended... I got free beer at the rock festival with " For Romanians I will do everything", under the startled eyes of my Dutch friend. People came just to shake my hand and smile, to congratulate our EU-entry, to reassure me that we are brothers, to explain that Voronin got voted only by "foolish peasants" ( which is not technically the case, as in Moldova, the president is voted by the Parliament.). I found out that the mayor of Chisinau is pro-Romanian and was paradoxically elected in a city that seems so dominated by a Russian feeling.

On the other hand, the way the young people I met see Moldova is quite different. They grew up in a sovereign country called Moldova, some are from mixed families, they feel attached culturally to the Post-Soviet bloc. Some even told me that they feel much more comfortable in Kiev or Moscow than in Bucharest. Flattering enough, Olga said "For me Romania feels like Western Europe." That means a divider. That means not home. And indeed, Chisinau feels to me worlds away from Timisoara. But not from Galati or Calarasi, as a matter of fact... Complicated..

I came here convinced that, after sixty years, just as the Ossis are different from the Wessis in Germany, people from historical Bessarabia had such a different experience from the Romanians in the RSR that they became Moldovans. They clearly showed that they don't want a reunification with Romania, from simple folks to the various elites, with the exception of the cultural elites and a minority of the political class. As Lucian Boia simply puts it: Why be the prefect of the Chisinau district when you can be the President of the Republic of Moldova?

Let's leave the Moldovans be what they want to be, I thought. Even though that came through military occupation and cultural engineering. But the wheel of time cannot be changed.

And then, Chiara, Teelkien, Anna and I went to the history museum. The trip to this rather simple museum, poor in artifacts and explanations, proved to be an eye-opener. It was not the museum's obvious pro-Romanian bias that made me think again. It was the encounter with a lady there. The museum itself talked about desnationalization policies in the Tsarist Empire, a sublime harmony and prosperity in interwar Romania ( it seems that in this country everything has to be black and white..) , then they talked about the Gulag and socialist Moldova. I told Anna, Chiara, and Teelkien about the deportations to Siberia of opposers to the Soviet Union, priests, teachers, richer peasants.

At the diorama showing the fights between the Soviet forces and the German troops, we met a lady with whom I started talking. She said "This is what they say it was the moment of Liberation". I translated that to my friends and Chiara asked her what does she mean. The lady told her, in French, "It was an occupation, not a liberation." " My father was deported to Siberia- he was a teacher." "And now people just don't care, they forgot. They forgot about the suffering. And you- and she pointed at me- you forgot about us as well." She meant us, the Romanians from beyond the Prut. Her eyes were teary, and so got mine. Indeed, what about these people who remember the Soviet attrocities, who felt they were taken away from their country? Who felt and still feel Romanian? From the man in Soroca to the ones I met in the villages, the woman from the museum, all over 60. These generations are dying, and with them, the memory of a different time, of a different country, of a different identity. They feel a minority in this country, forgotten by the Moldovan majority, they feel forgotten by Romania. Or at least, by the way recent history worked. And the gap between the two Prut banks is just going to deepen even more.

I thought of responsibility, of accountability. People who just want a way to the West get Romanian citizenship but they say they are Moldovans. Just a pragmatic move. Which undermined the image of Moldovans in Romania. But what about them, the people who indeed feel Romanian, but also left out? Romania should be more subtle and more nuanced with the way it treats Romanians on the other side of the border.

An interesting insight on why Russian is prevalent

That night, at the goodbye party, the conversation I had with Anna made me understand I think more about Moldova than anything else. Anna comes from a Jewish family, but is not an observant. She speaks Russian natively and we usually talked in English. In class, she asked rhetorically why should Moldovans call their language "Romanian" , even if it is identical, when Americans call their language "American". Well, I never met anybody in the US who would call their language "American"... Neither did I hear of any Austrian speakers. At the party, I asked her about how is it to be Jewish in contemporary Chisinau. We talked about it, and then she apologized for not speaking Romanian to me. She actually called it Romanian. "I am sorry, but we had a really bad teacher of Romanian. He spoke it funny, he was a ... how do you call that? ". She flustered and mentioned something like an ox. Apparently that was a reference to peasantry, to backwardness. Anna continued by saying that her class, made of urban native Russian speakers, from educated families, regarded Moldovan as the language of the countryfolk. "That is different from the real, pure Romanian. I think Romanian is a beautiful language", she added, " but the way my teacher spoke it was a mockery."

Suddenly I saw it. Yes. That is why they do it here in Chisinau all the time. In Bessarabia, Romanian has always been the language of the indigenous peasantry. Urban Bessarabia is of recent age, as in 1812, when Russia got it, this was an extremely rural territory. Urban Bessarabia was in fact rather always a Russian-speaking affair. During Soviet times, fitting in the big metropolis of Chisinau meant for many migrants from the countryside switching to Russian. That until the migration was so large that Romanian-speakers became the majority. But Russian still remained the status-language. It is rather similar to countries like Peru- Quechua speakers prefer to speak Spanish to mark an improvement of social status... For the Moldovans, 1989 and their language-movement was a very courageous assertion. They got it. Today's Chisinau is filled with signs in Romanian. But for many young people, speaking Russian remained kind of the cool, hip thing to do. It's like the English-fetishism of many a Bucharest youth... It comes from a deep complex of inferiority over their own parochial culture...

I was thinking how everything was just so different from the Baltic states. In fact , Moldova seems to be the anti-Baltic states.

The taxi driver and the amoral Baltic states

Goodbye Chisinau, goodbye Moldova g


I am now saying goodbye to Moldova, to a trip that will stay close to my heart. For two reasons. And here, on this blog, I wrote only about one. About Moldova itself and my quest for finding out more about its identity, speaking with people in the streets, listening to their fascinating stories and points of view. It was quite a trip indeed.

But the other reason is the wonderful friendships that I made with the great people from our European group here in Chisinau. I never write on blogs about my friends, for privacy reasons, but let me just say I had an amazing time and I will miss them greatly ! Parallely to discovering Moldova, I discovered this beautiful group of people, we had tremendous fun, from exploring together to enjoying Chisinau's great nightlife, from Romanta romances to Gatito rescue-operations, from the most splendid dance of Tim and MJ to Marianna's humor. I will miss you.
Auf Wiedersehen, a bientot, goodbye!


to G
Great self-portrait of Moldovans:
http://www.basarabeni.ro/dm.php