The whole concept of Moldova is preposterous, a lost piece of Romania with a lost piece of the definitely definite-articled Ukraine tacked onto it.
It comes complete with a Moldovan language which is in fact Romanian, but written using the Cyrillic script.
It comes complete with a Moldovan language which is in fact Romanian, but written using the Cyrillic script.
In other words, a Romance language which many of us "Westerners" could go no small distance towards sight-reading, and which Classicists or native readers of the Modern Latin dialects spoken from Rio to Tahiti probably could sight-read.
But written like Russian, and thus allegedly a different language called "Moldovan". Except that they are now writing in the Latin script again, officially. And calling it "Romanian" again, officially. Or are they? It can be very hard to keep up, officially. Unofficially, things are a great deal clearer.
But written like Russian, and thus allegedly a different language called "Moldovan". Except that they are now writing in the Latin script again, officially. And calling it "Romanian" again, officially. Or are they? It can be very hard to keep up, officially. Unofficially, things are a great deal clearer.
Readers of many, possibly most, of the other languages written in Cyrillic script could at least find their way around in any of them. It is possible to hold a spoken conversation with one participant using Russian and the other using Ukrainian.
But Moldovan, being in fact Romanian, is a completely closed book to them. They could sound it out phonetically. But they would have no idea what the words meant.
But Moldovan, being in fact Romanian, is a completely closed book to them. They could sound it out phonetically. But they would have no idea what the words meant.
A completely closed book to, for example, most of the inhabitants of Trans-Dniester.
Like most, possibly all, of the 15 Soviet Republics, Ukraine
and the then Moldavia were never designed to be sovereign states, and they do
not work as such.
The world ought to have refused to recognise the independence
of any of them, or of any part of any of them, thereby forcing them to hold
together.
We are now reaping the whirlwind of our failure to do so. The only
wonder is that it has taken this long.
Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were before Molotov-Ribbentrop, each Liberal European parliamentary democracies, now quite correctly in the EU and NATO where they belong. They are inviolably sovereign.
ReplyDeleteBut you maybe right about some of the other states. The bulk of Moldova should join its motherland of Romania and therefore the EU
Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were not independent for very long before Molotov-Ribbentrop.
ReplyDeleteOngoing events have in any case effectively voided their membership of NATO, which is not, simply not, going to war with Russia, no matter what.
Their brief independence between the Wars had been part of the humiliation inflicted by Germany and Austria-Hungary on defeated Russia at Brest-Litovsk in 1918.
Latvia and Estonia became dictatorships in 1934, and Lithuania as early as 1926.
Although Lithuania has a different history, Latvia and Estonia had never existed as independent states before 1918.
After having been ruled by the Teutonic Knights and then by Sweden, they had become parts of the Russian Empire from the 1720s onwards.
In other words, and in order to give some perspective, they had done so only very slightly after the Union between England and Scotland.
Therefore, their incorporation into the Soviet Union in 1944 was nothing more than the restoration of the centuries-old status quo ante.
It was warmly welcomed by much of the Baltic political class, which contained many committed Communists.
That the Polish city of Wilno, now Vilnius, should have become and remained the capital of Lithuania was and is entirely pursuant to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939.
It is the case that the large Russian minorities in Lithuania and, especially, in Latvia and in Estonia, increased during the Soviet period, very much at the request of the local Communist Parties, which sought them to fill various positions in the economy.
But those minorities had existed, and had been numerically considerable, for centuries.
Upon independence in 1991, the Baltic States adopted the founding constitutional principle that they had been occupied by the USSR rather than incorporated into it, so that they were merely reverting to their interrupted sovereign statehood.
In 1993, Latvia even elected a President, Guntis Ulmanis, who was a great-nephew of Kārlis Ulmanis, the Inter-War dictator. He had come up through a rapidly reconstituted party which his great-uncle had banned.
But the laws of occupation are comprehensively set out in the Hague Conventions of 1907. The powerless citizenry of an occupied state remains a separate legal entity from its occupier.
Whereas incorporation makes the members of that citizenry into citizens of the incorporating state. That was what happened in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.
From 1944 to 1991, their inhabitants were Soviet citizens, simply as a matter of legal fact. As they had been from 1922 to 1940, and as they had been de facto even if not de jure, along with everyone else in the territory concerned, from 1917 to 1922.
Those states therefore share in the responsibility for the Soviet regime during most of its history.
They were never victims of imperialism as the term is ordinarily understood.
Yet, like many Austrians in relation to the Third Reich, but without the excuse that most people involved are now dead, they are determined to pretend that they were indeed victims.
Citizenship is denied, voting rights are refused, amenities are not extended, schools teaching through the medium of Russian are closed, and so on. Inside NATO. Inside the EU.
These are not even measures against small minorities, or against recent immigrants with their children and grandchildren, for whose rights in these spheres the advocates of Eurofederalism and Atlanticism normally, and in most cases rightly, fight with such vigour.
Rather, these are measures against large population groups that are several centuries old.
The defence of Saint Petersburg, and of the highly populous heartland of ethnic Russian culture from that city to Moscow, is impossible without control of the Baltic States.
Of course I know most of this already, and I agree that Baltic policy towards ethic Russians should become much more generous, but in terms of bread & butter issues, it would severely damage the economic, social, & cultural Quality of life of almost all Baltic citizens and should not be allowed to happen.
ReplyDeleteWhat would damage that quality of life?
ReplyDeleteAnd it must be emphasised that there is absolutely no Russian threat to the sovereignty of any of the Baltic States.
It’s easy to see where you are coming from with Moldova. It’s a particularly ridiculous case of a subjective historical interpretation of territoriality overriding a people’s willingness to allow self-determination for others. I did some research on this for my MSc: for many Moldovans it’s fear of losing Transnistria that made them pull-back from unifying with Romania. But, as you say, Moldova has little claim on Transnistria on the grounds of nationality and self-determination, and less on the grounds of history (not that the latter should ever matter much – ‘everywhere has been part of everywhere’ if you go back far enough. If Russian-Ukrainian relations had been better since 1991 then Transnistria would have ended up part of Odessa Oblast (which contains a big chunk of the previous incarnation of Transnistria, along with the grave of its principle hero/thug) and Moldova would have folded back into the rest of Moldavia. It’s possible that a solution along those lines may yet present itself in time.
ReplyDeleteAs for the Baltic States, though, I’m not sure what your argument is. I agree that granting Vilnius to Lithuania was an injustice. But the rest of your point seems to be ‘the Baltic States weren’t independent for long before 1991, they had a Russian minority for a long time, so the desire of the majority of the population to be independent should have been suppressed’. Suppressed how, exactly? Do you think that those who struggled long, hard, and on the whole rather peacefully in the late 1980s and early 1990s would have just quit? Or are you advocating that the Russians should have gunned them down?
No, the Baltic peoples decided that they no longer wanted to be ruled by a German minority, or a German minority under Russian patronage, or a Russian technocratic elite who suppressed their culture. Their independence, and subsequent political maturity, is to be commended. And their pooling of sovereignty with the other small nations of Europe in the face of imperialist Russian bullying is both practical and progressive. Good on them.
They don't want to be ruled by the Germans, so they have joined the EU?
ReplyDeleteWhat a crass, intellectually lazy response. Being in a confederation of small states, of which Germany is a leading member, is hardly the same thing as being directly controlled and colonised by an imperialist and colonialist power.
ReplyDeleteThe EU is hardly "a confederation of small states."
ReplyDeleteAnd the Baltic States never were "directly controlled and colonised by an imperialist and colonialist power." That is their post-Soviet myth of themselves. It is not true.