Moldova: “Our Romanian Language” Day Protest

This post is part of our special coverage Language and the Internet.

Moldova is one of the few countries in the world that celebrates Language Day, a holiday usually marked by nations that have fought for the right to speak their native language.

Twenty-two years ago, on August 31, 1989, while still a part of the Soviet Union, after fierce deliberations, Moldova adopted the Romanian language as the state language and returned to the Latin script. During the Soviet rule, the country had been forced for almost 50 years to use the Cyrillic script, and the Soviet Union continuously propagated the existence of the Moldovan language as a distinct entity from the Romanian language.

"Our language Romanian"

"Our language Romanian"

Twenty years after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the official language is still disputed in Moldova, whilst the Constitution calls it Moldovan, the educational system teaches Romanian, and the ethnic minorities insist on formalizing the Russian language as a second official language.

Ahead of this year’s celebration of Our Romanian Language Day, the Moldovan netizens organized via Facebook [ro] a protest demanding the authorities to replace the phrasing “Moldovan language” with “Romanian language” from the highly disputed 13th Article of the Moldovan Constitution.

The initiative's organizers motivated the attendees with the following slogans:

DEMAND WHAT BELONGS TO YOU; DEMAND THE INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF THE ROMANIAN LANGUAGE!

For 20 years, an injustice has been written down in the Constitution of the Republic of Moldova, it harms the Historical Truth of our nation. Those from yesterday, from today and from tomorrow are living this injustice every day, they tolerate and decry it, and they revolt and conform to it, but what will we leave for our offspring and how will we be able to look into their eyes with the shame of our cowardice?

Our parents fought to leave the Soviet Empire, what do we do to carry on with the dignity of their names?

Netizens used Facebook to organize a protest under the slogan: "COME! to protect the LANGUAGE and the HISTORY"

Netizens used Facebook to organize a protest under the slogan: "COME! to protect the LANGUAGE and the HISTORY"

This call to protest ended with the following message:

The affirmation of the Romanian identity does not affect the attitude towards the identity of the ethnic minority groups (Ukrainians, Russians, Bulgarians, Gagauz) who live next to us in the Republic of Moldova. We have to respect each other.

Sergiu Scarlat wrote [ro] on the event’s Facebook page:

We have to fight against the invaders (Russian friends) and to clearly demonstrate that we are at home and here we speak Romanian or at least Moldovan, if anyone spots the difference…

Around 200 people, from more than 1000 who had signed up on the Facebook page, actually turned up at the protest held on August 30 in capital Chisinau.

The protesters carried signs saying:

Without language, without history. We are left with bread and circus?

20 years of “Moldovan language.” How much longer will we endure?

Moldovan language – an invention of the invaders?

Romanian language is my motherland!

The event has made it into mainstream media coverage. The buzz in the blogosphere portraits the still fragile and controversial status of the Romanian language.

Traian Vasilcau decries [ro] the status of the Romanian language existent nowadays in Moldova:

Put on the wall of infamy, the Romanian language sees in front of its eyes a sea of darkness, so big that one could easily slap someone.

He goes on:

From the declaration of independence of the Republic of Moldova, know that only 1 percent of the Bessarabian aliens have learned the pseudo state language.

“Pseudo,” because the eternal problem of the name of the Romanian language is part of science fiction novels.

It is Moldovan for the unconscious populations and for the pro-Communists, and it is Romanian for the conscious population of [Bessarabia].

Alex Cozer assesses [ro] the situation in the same manner:

Still, just like in the case of “independence,” our “Romanian” language is a fake celebration, because, in fact, the Romanian language, just like the independence, is trampled down and not respected.

The blogger appeals to the Prime Minister to keep his promise of levying the main – and the monopolist – chain of cinemas to dub or subtitle movies in Romanian. In the main cinemas of the Moldovan capital, one can only watch movies in Russian.

On the other side of the barricade, blogger Nicolae Pascaru engages [ro] in a debate [ro] where he argues that the language name should be Moldovan, because Moldovan is written down in the Constitution.

Comments to his viewpoint have been mainly critical. A user calling himself Infinit says [ro]:

I am sorry to let you know, but there is a problem with the Constitution. I am afraid several mistakes have slipped in there. The Moldovan language is one of them and is not even the most serious one. I have not seen the Moldovan Constitution mentioning that Smirnov [the self-proclaimed leader of the secessionist entity of Transnistria] has to control Transnistria from 1990, nor that the military units of other states have to be stationed on the territory of Moldova.

Tudor Darie deplores [ro] the fact that certain members of the Moldovan Parliament cannot speak the Romanian language. According to him, the solution is this:

The Government and the Parliament need to create the necessary conditions to protect and promote “the state language” and we (those who follow the historical truth) must not beg, but impose respect for the Romanian language!

Corneliu Gandrabur goes back in his blog post [ro] to the date of August 31, 1989:

On August 31, 1989, I was 2 years and 9 months old; possibly I was still speaking Romanian. On that day, when probably I was playing in the sand in front of the house, on Lenin Street, there were many people who were demanding in one voice the Romanian language and the Latin Alphabet. They got what they demanded, but with the right to only speak it once a year.

[…]

How many more years will we speak Romanian only one day per year? A tough question even for me, I am not even going to write anything about those who are in power now!

Alexandru Tanase writes [ro] on his Facebook wall:

In ’89 I was in the square [National Square] together with thousands of people who were fighting for the adoption of the Romanian language as the state language and the return to the Latin script. In fact, the fight was taking place not only for the return of the Romanian language to public life. In ’89 we were fighting for dignity, which is the basis and the sum of all human rights and values. Congratulations everyone!

This post is part of our special coverage Language and the Internet.

21 comments

  • George

    Finally, I got your point. Nevertheless we can both agree that Moldova is at the crossroads of history. One road leads to a clear path of embracing the universal values of individual freedom, liberal democracy, and market economy, whereas the other leads to nowhere. Now, to move the debate foreword we must also understand that the Moldovan population is to traumatized by years of Soviet and Russian imposed system (remember the former small soviet republics with a Muslim majority for example) and must be led by the intellectuals and political elites (the majority of political elites in Moldova outside the communist party is in favor of an European program). This happened with Germany during Bismarck and Wilhelm the II.
    The other point is that by no means a Moldavian (and not an anti-Romanian!) program would be against an European idea of embracing universal values. An anti – Romanian (pro- Russian) program would nevertheless deny the Moldavian population (not people) the natural evolution of the country towards those values.
    Dear Vitaky, this is so simple. Moldova’s return to its origin is self imposed and self assumed, is something natural, I see nothing artificial, and requires nothing than the absence of coercion. This is the difference between the to paths and this is the power of LIBERTY.

  • Vitaky

    Dear George,

    In communicating with you I have the impression that I deal with a person from the 19th century – so zealously you embrace a national credo, so convinced you are of the Manichean division of the world into the forces of good and evil and so ardently you believe that a bright future awaits the members of you supposed national community. You should really read into the literature on modern nationalism and nation-building and start perhaps with Lucean Boia, Istorie si mit in constiinta romaneasca (1997). That would help you to maintain a critical distance from the current political slogans and buzz words.

    While everyone nowadays wants to be a European, including myself, let me draw your attention to the fact that so far Moldova integrated into Europe only by means of prostitutes and gastarbeiters. Transition to market economy resulted in the lowest per capital GDP on the European continent (2600 USD compared to Ukraine’s $6900, Byelorussia’s $11800, let alone Russia’s $11500). Moldova occupied a comfortable middle place among the Soviet Union republics in terms of per capita GDP, but now it is on the penultimate place among them (just above the war-torn Tajikistan, but well below the similarly war-torn Georgia). As to democracy, it is tested by how a currently ruling power treats the opposition and whether it allows in principle the possibility of the opposition coming back to power. Surprisingly enough, Moldova so far had a better record in this respect than other former Soviet republics. Only here the oppositional Communist party managed to come to power after 1991 and subsequently gave place to opposition and both political changes happened within the limits of constitutional legality. However, domnul Ghimpu is determined to deprive Moldova of this sole political achievement in the last two decades.

  • George

    How can you use such words of hate. By saying that Moldova offered only prostitutes you show that your are not a cultivated man. Your way of thinking as I sead before hits nullity, because your thinking is limited, you take facts separately and with intention you chose only the one that fits your hypothesis.
    !!!!You cannot make a good assessment of the economic situation without taking in consideration the political one!!!!!!!!! Analising the economic image you must take in consideration the political situation and the war against Russian sustained separatist region Transnistria ( who wants to invest in a war torn country???????). Second the Communist Government of Moldova led by Voronin by no means implemened market economy structural changes ( a puppet government of Russia, it reign almost 15 years in uncontested rule controlling the media and with the financial support of Russia, and how can you ask the new government to offer something that the communist could not in over 15 years). If we add the fact that the industrial capabilities were in Transnistria (Russia controled), Moldova had great troble in coping with the new realities.
    As I said before, Moldova has just one choice to ensure its independence and well being: (1)move towords liberal democracy (this means only free election, has nothing to do with righ or leftist ideologies,), (2) move towards market economy (everybody knows that by no means this leads neccesarly to whealth among the people, but is the only viable solution, PS: Russia, China have several Stock Markets!!!!!!). These two mean the integration of Moldova in EU structures.
    I think our disimilarities come from the fact that we are part of two different political cultures. You probably are inclined to favour of soviet style or Russia political culture. This proves even now to be a faulty one, it is based on totalitarian regimes, like you see now in Russia and China (although those in China like to call themselves one party system) which is based on the concentration of power in the hands of one group of people suppressing the will of the people.
    I am inclined towards the Western political culture ( i am Romanian living in Bucharest) based on liberal democracy, and social capitalism (see Germany and France). By no means I say that the western model those not have severe faults, but is the best we had, although I know there is something better.

  • Vitaky

    Dear George,

    I think your discussion is about to enter in an impasse. What really makes us different is not the political positions that each of us defends, but our attitudes towards them. To put it briefly, you are, above all, a “believer,” while I am fundamentally a skeptic.
    You claim that I belong to a “Soviet style or Russian political” culture, and yet you are the one who believes in a “bright future.” I leave it to you (and to the possible readers of these posts) to decide which one of us is more realistic in his judgments.

    For my part, I can only observe that your ardent belief makes you accept wholesale the principles of liberal market economy at the moment when they are so seriously challenged in Europe and elsewhere by the current economic crisis. The same belief in the righteousness of your cause leads you to think that the political world is black and white, whereas it is very polychrome. Hence also your quite indiscriminate use of political terminology: to call present-day Russian or Chinese government a “totalitarianism” is to stretch a notion to the point where it loses any meaning. (This is not to say that present-day Russia or China are democracies, but democracy and totalitarianism do not exhaust the nomenclature of existing political forms.) You treat politics like religion and present it as a secular struggle between good and evil. This leads you to exaggerate the forces of the latter: Voronin’s government ruled Moldova for 8 years, not for 15. You should really avoid conspiracy theories about him as Russia’s puppet. Was he a puppet when he refused to sign the Kozak memorandum on Transnistria in 2004? Or when the Moldavian wine-makes were denied access to the Russian market?

    Obviously, Moscow exerted some influence, but don’t you think that this only natural given the relative sizes of Moldova and the Russian Federation as well as their geographical proximity? How realistic is a strategy of the country’s development which would totally exclude from consideration the interests of such an important neighbour? Especially at a time, when its other great neighbour, the European Union, has too many internal problems to think of further eastward expansion?

    Sincerely,

    Vitaky

  • George

    I appear to think in terms of black and white because I like to see things in a structural manner. Seeing things in a structural way may oversimplify certain issues, bu anyway the laws of the universe are to complicated for us to understand. To simply point out the Communist party of Moldova and the Russian Federation are the biggest menace towards the stability of Moldova. Also, I am against any form of transcending, especialy such concepts as good or evil, democracy or totalitarianism. Without a clear knowledge of what each of them means is hard to understand each other. For example when we say “democracy” we in the west understand it as “liberal democracy”. Communist countries (USSR, China) also said they were democratic states, but they understood democracy as “collective democracy” (totalitarianism) which is something totaly different from the original sense of the word. These difference of political culture makes people understand same concepts as different. Another concept is that of justice. Russia understands justice as power. Why did Russia not redrew its forces from Transnistria although at the OSCE Summit in Istanbul in 1999 they signed an agreement especialy with a provision regarding the redraw of all Russian soldiers?, also Russian soldiers attacked an independent country at the break of the war. Why? Because Russia has power. We in EU understand justice as respecting a set of norms agreed on the international scale. Is not that Russia those not respect International Laws, but it does it only when respecting them is compatible with their principle of power. The precedents of the past show that Russia can by no means be trusted.
    So the solution I offer is the integration in the EU structures, the way is West. You are offering no alternative.
    Also I want to point out that we are in search of a new system of social and economic relations but this “search” is happening only in Europe. I foresee no change in the Eurasian region, or in other parts of the world such as China or Russia (they cannot change their actual political system).
    Also to prove that you are wrong in most of your arguments I want to stress for example the issue of GDP/capita presented by you. If lets say in country A there are 10 individual equaly sharing a GDP of 10 Euros. Each of them will receive 1 Euro. Now lets say that the same happens in another country B where the concentration of capital is bigger. Now the share is not equal. 1 individual has 8E and the other 9 must split the 2 remaining Euros. Now I ask you is GDP/Capita representative always? Is not even relevant. You have no depth in your analysis.
    What I want to tell you is to test your hypothesis before presenting it to audience.
    Everything you say is destroyed by reality and past experience. And by no means I said the world is black and white, but if there is no good knowledge of history and of political concepts everything can be interpreted and the discussion becomes useless.
    Any decent political analyst would say that the Communist government of Moldova was a disaster from any point of view, and that Voronin is an oligarch. Now you can accuse me that I see Voronin (his family is the richest in Moldova) in black and the pro liberal democracy and market economy forces as white. I say just give them a chance lets say “8” years and then analyse their performance.

  • Vitaky

    Did you notice how far the discussion veered away from the issues that provoked it. We started with the Romanian/Moldavian language and identity issues, but almost immediately you switched to Europe and the radiant future that it has in store for Moldova. What a wonderful illustration to the bankruptcy of the nationalist ideas of 1989! At certain point the talk about unification with Romania is substituted by EU accession rhetoric. Undoubtedly, this is done in order to make the ideas of the coalition government more palatable to Moldova’s ethnic minorities. But there is also an implicit recognition of the fact that integration into Romanian nation-state, or any kind of nation-state building for that matter, is not an option, because nation-states of small or medium size are simply economically unviable in contemporary conditions. Moldavian gastarbeiters do not choose between Russia and Romania. They choose between Russia and the European Union.

    So, at least you have to admit that the “real alternative” has nothing to do with the national(ist) slogans and that all these controversies about the language have no relation to Moldova’s European integration. The people of Moldova can call their language whatever they like, but in itself it wouldn’t bring their country any closer to EU. Such controversies can only help domnul Ghimpu to mobilize his electorate.
    After it is made clear that a (Romanian) nation-state is not an alterantive, it remains to see whether Europe is really an option. I leave aside the actual willingness of the Europeans to accept new members (although as Turkey’s example demonstrates, they can keep a country on the waiting list for 50 years). But even if the wonder happens and tomorrow Moldova becomes part of EU, I do not see any reasons for euphoria. You paint Europe as a wonder-forking laboratory of new social forms, whereas I look at the economic statistics. It tells me that while the world economy continues to grow (despite the crisis!) at the rate 5 % a year, that of Europe proceeds at caterpillar pace of 1% or under. Even before the crisis, European rates of growth were considerably lower than those of China, India, Brazil and Russia. “Capitalism with Asian” values demonstrated that: 1) liberal democratic government is not the political form that assures the maximum of economic growth; 2) the growth of the market economy does not lead to the spontaneous “liberalization” of the society and the transformation of the erstwhile authoritarian regimes into democratic ones, contrary to the universal expectation in the West. This does not mean that Moldova should start building a “totalitarian government.” All I want to say is that the leaders should be realistic enough and cooperate with all neighbours. Fortunately, Vlad Filat seem to be more realistic than Ghimpu & Co.

    Finally, I do not see how the concentration of capital invalidates comparisons of per capita GDPs. The concentration of capital in Byelorussia’s with its “Soviet” economy cannot be higher than in Moldova and thus whatever is the distribution of wealth in Moldova, Moldavians are at least FOUR times poorer than the Belorussians! If you point to the breakaway of Transnistria with its industry as the cause of Moldova’s misery, let me say that the blame largely rests with the Chisinau’s elites who were as interested in letting Transnistria go as Smirnov himself. In 1992 they realized very well that with the Transnistrian “Russophones” the communists would be back in power much sooner than they actually were and would hold it much longer than they did.

  • George

    I think you are right in the sense that the discussion deviated from its original purpose. Still i was obliged to deviate because you play with certain concepts. By no means I stress the unimportance of Russia as a political actor for Moldova. Moldova must make efforts to have good relations with Russia and is its interest to do so from any point of view: social, economic, cultural, and political. And so must do any actor in this world. What I want to tell is that this cooperation and good will should be mutual, Moldova must not be ally “by default”, its friendship must be courted. Also Moldova has other friends too such as Romania, Germany, France, US, and many others, who really can help. Gas and electricity lines were build between Romania and Moldova with European money (energetic independence). Indeed, Moldova must choose between European Union (Romania is the European Union), and Russia.
    Next, you make again huge mistakes and play with economic concepts such as economic growth.
    You said:
    “1) liberal democratic government is not the political form that assures the maximum of economic growth;”
    You should know that IS VERY EASY TO GROW WHEN YOU ARE LOW. The countries you mentioned such as Russia, China, Brazil (democracy), or India (India is a democracy), were well bellow their economic potential. Is like when you build a house. You make the first brick, and then you make the second brick. Here you have your 100% growth. It was foreseen starting with the 90′ that China (a country of 1.3 billion people) eventually will reach its well deserved status.
    But I repeat IS VERY EASY TO GROW WHEN YOU ARE LOW. Look at this list, who is on top:? and by what distance. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)

    Another issue is that of costs. I have a friend studying in Beijing Economics and she told me that the sun cannot, indeed, be seen in that town. Also there are huge issues of pollution in China, their growth rate cannot be maintained for much longer. Also you should know that 1% at European level in absolute terms is not far from lets say the 7% growth of China. Also their growth has also to do with the structure of their economy: Russia makes profit from the high price of oil (what economic performance? are you joking? China has another advantage: its cheap and huge labor force that can attract investors. Once these COMPARATIVE ADVANTAGES will disappear then we will really see how much their political system is compatible with economic performance. EU does not have free energy or cheap labor force, it has something else: economic performance (including innovation, research and development, etc.)
    And what about the outstanding performance of China against Russia, and how China see itself now as the first hand partner in any relation between the two countries? Funny you have not mention it.
    You said:
    “2) the growth of the market economy does not lead to the spontaneous “liberalization” of the society and the transformation of the erstwhile authoritarian regimes into democratic ones, contrary to the universal expectation in the West.”
    Off course not. Do you want a second Tianjin massacre? Although they adopted in some measure the economic system of the West they still have a great part of their economy centralized specific to totalitarian regimes. China now takes the fruit of the world economic system created by the West and not by Russia, or Brazil. Products are circulating freely from one country to another, people communicate between them around the world, they get informed, and make better decisions. Once this happens the pressure for political change appear and sooner or later they erupt. Who would have though about the Arab spring, regimes sustained by Russia and China even in the middle of the revolution (they blocked the UN sanctions and publicly sustained the regimes that killed people).
    You said:
    “I do not see how the concentration of capital invalidates comparisons of per capita GDPs”, but you also say that those countries are oligarchies (which means exactly a concentration of capital and power, that FOR GOD SAKE makes GDP per capita invalid without an index of the concentration of capital) and next you hail the Moldavian communist and oligarch government. What should I understand?
    This may be my final post here. I think my point of view is clear. Give the pro Europe forces a chance, just a chance and if you really want you will see the difference. Why not? And an advice: please be more open-minded.

  • Vitaky

    Dear George,

    It is really strange to hear the advice to be open-minded from someone who spent the three previous posts explaining how all Moldova’s troubles come from one particular country (Russia) and one particular party (the communists). Your last post, however, is different. Obviously, I could easily challenge your assertions as I had done previously, but I won’t do that because the discussion has to end somewhere. I can observe that, as our debate proceeded, your comments have become longer and your argumentation more elaborate. As a professional educator, I can only congratulate myself on producing such a positive influence upon my interlocutor. I do not hope to make you (or anyone else) abandon your opinions, only to change the manner in which you and others defend them. My intention was also to introduce an element of diversity into the uniformity of perspectives that are presented in Diana Lungu’s compilation and I think I have achieved this. It is only natural for me as a member of (ethnic) minority to conclude my participation in this discussion with a suggestion that we all agree to differ.

    Sincerely,

    Vitaky

  • George

    My thinking pattern developed in years of studying political science and economics. As I said there is a difference of political culture, but the truth is just one, it cannot be interpreted, is there for anybody that really wants to see it.

  • […] was reported on Gobal Voices international news site (http://globalvoicesonline.org/2011/09/01/moldova-our-romanian-language-day-protest/); “Ahead of this year’s celebration of Our Romanian Language Day, the Moldovan netizens […]

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