Origins Memory and Identity Villages and the Politics of Nationalism in the RM

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SocietiesEast European Politics &

DOI: 10.1177/08883254073073512007; 21; 588East European Politics and Societies

Jennifer R. Cashin the Republic of Moldova

Origins, Memory, and Identity: "Villages" and the Politics of Nationalism

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Origins, Memory, and Identity: Villagesand the Politics of Nationalism in the

Republic of MoldovaJennifer R. Cash*

This article reconsiders the manifestation of nationalism in the Republic ofMoldova during the late Soviet period and early 1990s. Whereas dominantapproaches have focused on the ethnic dimensions of the national move-ment, I argue that rural-urban identities also played a significant role in shap-ing political events and outcomes of the recent past by drawing onethnographic research among participants in the folkloric movement

within the arts and performance world. This movement coincided with thebroader national movement of the 1980s and demonstrates the centrality ofvillages in the construction of an anti-Soviet national identity among eth-nic Moldovans. In conclusion, the politics of nationalism must be understoodin a wider framework that also accounts for the importance of non-ethnicforms of collective identity, such as villages, and that investigates how indi-

vidual origins and social memory shape civic and political participation.

Keywords: Moldova; national identity; rural-urban identities; memory

National identity has been the single most studied aspect of poli-

tics in the Republic of Moldova since the country gained inde-

pendence in 1991. Most analysts and scholars have been

compelled to structure their accounts of recent political life by

asking the questionwhy did Moldova fail to unite with Romania

when it seceded from the Soviet Union? Asking this question

yields an account of a break in Moldovas political trajectorybetween 1991 and 1994, as local political forces shifted away from

overtly nationalistic platforms. While surprising, this shift has

East European Politics and Societies, Vol. 21, No. 4, pages 588610. ISSN 0888-3254 2007 by the American Council of Learned Societies. All rights reserved.

DOI: 10.1177/0888325407307351

*This article benefited greatly from comments made by participants at a workshop on

Emerging Citizenship and Contested Identities between the Dneister, Prut, and Danube

Rivers held at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle, Germany, on 10-11

March 2005. An earlier version of this article, focusing on the state as a citizenship regime, was

also published in the proceeds from that conference as Amintiri despre trecutul statelor: iden-

titatea accentuata si provocarile cetateniei (Memories of States Past: Identity Salience and the

Challenges of Citizenship) in Stat slab, cetatenie ncerta, ed. Monica Heintz (Bucharest:

Curtea Veche, 2007), 105-26. Field research conducted in 2001 was supported by an IndividualAdvanced Research Opportunity (IARO) grant from IREX. Neither IREX nor my fellow work-

shop participants bear responsibility for the information or views expressed here, and any

errors are my own.


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generally received positive evaluations because it seems to indi-

cate political moderation and maturity. The drop in support for

pro-Romanianism, which occurred as tensions developed in the

southern and eastern portions of the country, suggests thatMoldovas citizens will not support exclusionary forms of ethnic-

derived politics, andby extensionthat the governments legit-

imacy now depends on the degree to which it can address issues

beyond the sphere of identity politics. The dominant focus on

national identity in the recent literature on Moldova has therefore

been helpful for understanding social and political processes in

two ways: first, it has demonstrated that Romanian-Moldovan

relations are more complex than rhetorics of shared identitywould suggest, depending on a host of other local issues in each

country; and, second, it has traced how Moldovas political elite

have thus far responded to an electorate that is reluctant to pur-

sue identity politics to the point of conflict.

In the following article, however, I argue that despite the self-

correctives it has provided, the nearly exclusive focus on national

identity in Moldova has also resulted in a misunderstanding of fun-

damental dimensions of local political life and state-citizen relations.In contrast, by focusing on village, rural, and regional identities, I argue

that ethno-national identity is not the only social identity impli-

cated in political activity. Moreover, it may be premature to equate

the responsiveness of political parties to citizen moods with the

states legitimacy, as Moldovas citizens may not actually be prepared

to recognize the legitimacy of any state, regardless of the issues pur-

sued by its government. My argument hinges on the centrality of

collective memory to social life and political activity. Specifically, Iargue that a common feature of political life in Moldova since at

least the 1980s has been a principled mistrust of the state as a

political institution and actor. My data stem from ethnographic

work among members of the folkloric movement during 2001. I

see the emphases on village, rural, and regional identities in folk-

loric activities and among professional folklorists as emblematic

of broader patterns of social identity and memory throughout

Moldova. In conclusion, I urge other scholars and policy makers tomore fully pursue the political implications of these and other non-

national and non-ethnic forms of identity in Moldova.

East European Politics and Societies 589




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Republic of Moldova: Unraveling the paradox

In 1991, Moldovas declaration of independence from the Soviet

Union was considered normal, following as it did in the wake of

so many other republics similar declarations. But in the years that

followed, the rhetoric of pro-Romanianism gradually faded from

the speeches of political leaders, who moreover failed to initiate

unification with neighboring Romania. By 1994, Moldovas govern-

ment seemed to have embarked on the path of creating a decidedly

civic and multi-ethnic state,1 producing both confusion and opti-

mism among foreign scholars and policy makers.2

For observers, Moldovas political path since 1991 initially

seems counterintuitive because unification with Romania seemed

so certain.3After all, a majority (65 percent) of Moldovas popula-

tion can be considered ethnically Romanian (their native language

is linguistically indistinguishable from literary standard Romanian).4

Soviet secession was also preceded by a clearly pro-Romanian

nationalist movement, which refuted the existence of a Moldovan

nation distinct from that of the Romanians.5 Scholarship produced

prior to independence also played a role in reinforcing the expec-

tation that unification would follow independence, as dominant

historiographical approaches to Moldovas history concentrated

on documenting the illegitimacy of the Soviet Unions acquisition

of Bessarabia from Romania and the denationalizing effects of

Soviet policies on the local population.6

Efforts of the past decade, however, have succeeded in unrav-

eling much of the apparent paradox of Moldovas continued

sovereignty and renewed Moldovanism since the mid-1990s.

Pro-unification rhetoric generated significant fear and anxiety

among ethnic minorities, contributing to the development of the

Transnistrian and Gagauz conflicts in the years immediately fol-

lowing independence. These conflicts have constrained political

options during the past decade, as Moldovas political leaders in

Chisinau attempt to retain control over the full territory of the for-

mer Soviet republic. Beyond the dimensions of ethnic anxiety,

regionalism, and elite competition,7 the causes and consequences

of these conflicts also demonstrate several factors that help

explain the political inexpediency of reunification from the local

590 Moldovan Villages and the Politics of Nationalism




5/24

perspective. These factors include a tradition of political and

ethnic tolerance, real political differences between the citizenries

of Moldova and Romania, and suspicions on all sides (ethnic

Moldovans, Moldovas minorities, and Romanias citizenry)regarding the likely outcome of unification.8

While the Romanian question has occupied most political analy-

sis in and of Moldova, the Moldovan question or Bessarabian

question has been given significantly less attention in analyses

of Romanian politics since 1989. Romanias lack of initiative for

reunification might be seen as equally paradoxical. In the early

1990s, nearly all of Romanias political parties touted Bessarabias

reunification as a goal, yet none has actually pursued it. The fail-ure of ethno-national identity to guide Romanias foreign policy

also has several explanations. For one, during the years when

pro-Romanianism was in ascendance in Moldova, Romanias for-

eign policy had not fully broken free of socialist era relationships

with the Soviet Union. Indeed, Romanias first president after

Nicolae Ceausescu, Ion Iliescu, clearly maintained Soviet ties and

acted with circumspection in establishing Romanian relations

with a newly independent Moldova.9

Thereafter, Romanias inter-nal political dynamics developed in ways such that Bessarabia

never emerged as a wedge issue that could increase one partys

power over that of the others. Indeed, opinion polls indicate that

Romanians did not prioritize reunification; they were instead

most concerned with domestic issues, particularly those related

to economics.10 Romanian political developments thus present

another paradox: despite the ubiquity of nationalist rhetoric in

political life and widespread nation-centric views about how thestate should be organized, actual political behavior correlates

more strongly with real and perceived economic threats than

with ethnic or national identity.11

Memories of Romanian nation-building

Taken together, the development of Romanian and Moldovan

positions on reunification belies nationalist ideology. Rather thanforging a common state when given the chance, ethnic brothers

on both sides of the Prut have retained separate states. In both





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cases, national identity is deeply important to the political process,

yet regional power balances, economic interest, and pragmatism

in ethnic relations have held sway in foreign policy developments.

Politics in Romania and Moldova, however, should not be reducedto purely rational explanations. Among the rational factors

listed above also appear several related to identity.

For example, the suspicion held by ethnic Moldovans and their

minority neighbors toward Romania and Romanians deserves fur-

ther investigation, as it points largely to the influence of collective

memory on political behavior. At the beginning of the inter-war

period, ethnic Moldovans considered Romania an uncivilized

country, denigrated Romanian high culture, and were convincedthat Romanian literature could or should not exist. The negative

appraisal of Romania and Romanians may have been a conse-

quence of unfamiliarity; after all, local intellectuals and the upper

classes had been progressively integrated into Russian institu-

tions, language, and culture from 1812.12 Familiarity, however,

confirmed and developed negative appraisals of Romania and

Romanians during the inter-war period.

The Romanian project for nation-building in Bessarabia was acomplex one, combining nation-building with state-building, mod-

ernization, and urbanization. At the level of nation-building alone,

Romanian administrators were faced with the task of convincing

ethnic Moldovans that they were, in fact, ethnic Romanians. The

other projects required increasing literacy (in Romanian), building

infrastructure, developing industry, and staffing the new institu-

tions with Romanian speakers. These were not easy tasks, all the

more because ethnic Moldovans held Russian language and cul-ture in high esteem, but considered their own language inappro-

priate for public discourse. While inter-war efforts enjoyed some

success, Romanian rule also left a record of corrupt, incompetent,

greedy, and foolishly proud administrators.

The shortcomings of Romanian rule were recognized by con-

temporary commentators13 and have been kept alive in collective

memory. One woman, for example, who was in her early teens

during World War II, responded to my question about the possi-bilities of Romanian-Moldovan re-unification with an answer

rooted in her childhood experience.





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Romania wants reunification because Romanians know that Moldovansare hard-working, but Romanians are stinkers. Romania is full ofGypsies, and they steal. Romanians know that they lived here well, and

when they left, they left with full suitcases. But no Moldovans would

ever want to re-unite with Romania. We know what Romanians are like.The country needs to be left to live by itself for a while, and it wants tolive by itself. Only the rich in Moldova want to reunite because thenthey could control people; people would work for them, and they

would take, and go to Bucharest, and live very well. You should go tothe countryside and ask people if they want to reunite. See if they donot tell you exactly what I have told you.

Indeed, during 2001 and since, I have encountered many asser-

tions that Romanians are Gypsies and Romanians are thieves.For at least some individuals, these stereotypes reflect directly on

Romanian behavior during the inter-war period. While many indi-

viduals spoke from their experience of the Romanian impact in vil-

lages, others had grown up in towns or cities, and they came from

different ethnic backgrounds.14 Another man followed his invec-

tives against the Romanians by explaining to me that he had pre-

ferred Soviet rule because agriculture was organized, there had

been money to buy his daughters pretty dresses, and things hadbeen nice. Memories of inter-war rule surface in other forms as

well, such as a good-natured argument I encountered among

elderly villagers in the village of T ra over which army (Romanians,

Russians, or Germans) had treated them best. The loudest voice

came out in favor of the Germans, who were claimed to have

treated women with deference, given children candy, and paid for

the milk they consumed, in implied contrast to known tales of

Romanians and Russians having confiscated both villagers foodsupplies and livestock as their own.15Although Romanian projects

also affected rural-urban and inter-ethnic relations, these changes

are not the most salient ones in contemporary public discussion,

which instead focuses on collective memories of the presence and

negative effects of Romanian rule in rural areas.

Memories of nationalizing states

Memories of Romanian rule are not the only collective memo-

ries that have influenced political behavior in Moldova during the





8/24

past two decades. Rather, memories of previous state rule, previ-

ous nation-building projects and policies, and traditional life, as

practiced and experienced in villages, contributed greatly to the

swell of popular protest against state rule, andsubsequentlytothe subsiding interest in creating a strongly mono-ethnic nation-

state, whether by unification or pro-Romanian policies. In short,

Moldovas past has created a citizenry that is skeptical of states in

general, and of nationalizing states in particular.

In the following pages, I suggest how more thorough investiga-

tions of memory can inform understandings of political behavior

in Moldova, and more broadly throughout Eastern Europe where

populations have experienced the failure of previous states andtheir nation-building activities. I use examples taken from the life

and career histories of individuals involved in the folkloric move-

ment that accompanied Moldovas nationalist movement in the

late 1980s and early 1990s to demonstrate how some key local

identities were inadvertently strengthened by state policies during

the Soviet period. In particular, individuals born in villages faced

discrimination in urban housing and employment opportunities,

even as the Soviet state drew them to cities through other policiesthat encouraged urbanization, industrialization, and moderniza-

tion. Structures of higher education and cultural activity were as

deeply implemented in Soviet urbanization as were factories, and

perhaps even more so, as the best schools and subsequent

career opportunities within each republic were concentrated in

the capital city. As Moldovas cities swelled with rural immigrants

in the 1980s, their experiences with structural discrimination

helped re-constitute the village as a collectively imagined sourceof deeply valued authentic social and cultural identity. The folk-

loric movement, as it formed in the 1980s, captured and reflected

the importance of the village in individual lives from a variety of

directions, which I explore below.

The folkloric movement

During the 1980s and 1990s, Moldova experienced a folkloricmovement at the same time as the national movement gained

prominence. As a movement among professional folklorists,





9/24

ethnographers, and performers, the folkloric movement protested

Soviet visions of national identity and culture.16 The folkloric move-

ment also had more narrowly defined goals than did the broader

social and political national movement with which it coincided.Most concisely, the folkloric movement was concerned with the

representation of Moldovan folklore as it appeared in the per-

formances ofpopular(Russ. narodnii) ensembles. Members of

the movement sought to replace the choreographed repertoires,

stylized performances, and politicized narratives of folklore

presented bypopularensembles with authentic folklore as it

existed in Moldovas actual villages. To this end, they organized

new ensembles, workshops, and festivals that adhered to rigor-ous criteria: authentic folkloric performances were to incorpo-

rate materials that the performers had collected directly from a

limited number of villages (ideally, only one village). In costum-

ing, staging, delivery, and composition of performers by number,

age, and gender, the new folklore was expected to replicate vil-

lage reality as closely as possible. By refocusing on the village as

the source of traditions, the folkloric movement also sought to

eliminate the recurrent discussion of inter-ethnic friendshipdepicted in manypopularperformances. Today, the prominence

of ethnicity in Soviet performances is still interpreted by

members of the movement as reflecting a distasteful and manip-

ulative political ideology. Ensembles representing any ethnic

group (via village-based repertoires) are technically eligible to

compete under the new standards of authenticity, but move-

ment members remain quietly divided over the question of

which ethnic groups actually possess distinct and authentic tra-ditions.17 Across ethnic lines and generally ignoring the ethnic

dimensions of their goals, movement members today describe

their activity of the past two decades as removing culture from

politics and re-establishing a natural order to social life.

While the movement has not succeeded in eliminatingpopu-

lar ensembles, or in erasing their popularity with the general

public, it has been successful in establishing new definitions and

criteria for folklore as a performative genre. During the pasttwo decades, countless ensembles and over twenty competitive

festivals have been established for the exclusive performance





10/24

and development of self-consciously authentic folcloric and etno-

folcloric ensembles. During my fieldwork among these ensembles

in 2001, attendance at festivals was generally low and limited to

members and supporters of the performing groups themselves. Yetat the height of local opposition to Soviet practices in the late 1980s

and early 1990s, public performances by these new ensembles

drew tears from their audiences. When I asked why these perfor-

mances had elicited such strong emotional responses, I was given

a simple answer: people in the audiences came from villages and

knew the traditional songs, dances, costumes, and rituals.

More than the nationalist movement, which it accompanied,

the folkloric movement reflects the complex relation betweenethnic and non-ethnic identities in the Republic of Moldova. In

so doing, it also explains why nation-building efforts that focus

explicitly on capturing and cultivating ethnic identities have ulti-

mately appeared false to Moldovas ethnic majority. Ethnic

Moldovan identity is not based on linguistic and cultural traits

alone; rather, Moldovan ethnicity also exists in relational terms.

Specifically, Moldovan ethnicity encapsulates historical patterns

of discrimination, neglect, and inadequate representation bystate structures. The discourse of authentic villages and region-

alism appearing in the new folklore therefore reflects and rein-

forces a general suspicion of state power.

In the following pages, I explore the initial resonance of the

folkloric movements aims with the personal lives of the general

population and performers themselves. What was it about vil-

lages and village life that generated shared emotional reactions

between folklorists, performers, and the general public for a fewyears? The folkloric movement points our attention to the con-

tinued prominence of local, rural, village, and regional identities

in the Republic of Moldova. These identities have previously con-

flicted with the demands, issued first by Romania and then by the

Soviet Union, that ethnic Moldovans prioritize citizenship and

nationalityover other identities in their personal and political

lives. Actual encounters with the state through its policies and

institutions, however, have reinforced the social importance oflocal space as individuals from rural areas have been kept in

their place vis--vis the modernizing state.





11/24

Career chocies and village origins

Members of Moldovas folkloric community share their commit-

ment to village-based research with other ethnographers and folk-

lorists throughout Eastern Europe. Indeed, the focus on the

village is a point of both convergence and divergence between

East European ethnology and Western anthropology.18 Thus vil-

lages appear as the source of authentic tradition in Moldovas folk-

loric ensembles in part because scholarship requires it. Yet the

individuals involved in organizing authentic folkloric activities

began to do so in opposition to a specifically Soviet model of folk-

loric performance, and therefore it is important to ask why

members of the folkloric movement chose to reform their profes-

sion by advocating highly detailed and accurate study and repre-

sentation of villages. Whyin 1980s Soviet Moldovadid the

village appear as the most ideal and self-evident locus for cultural

authority and identity?

In order to understand the personal meaning members of the

folkloric community attribute to the village, I asked my infor-

mants how they began their careers in folklore. I found that for

many ensemble directors, their training as musicians or dancers

preceded their involvement in folklore. Few deliberately chose

folklore; it emerged as an area of possible activity that they

accepted. When they talked about the beginnings of their

careers, however, many of my contacts brought up their village

origins as having a decisive impact on their choices. Such is the

case with theSurorile O. (Sisters O.), who were among the first

and most influential members of the folkloric community.19

In September 2001, I interviewed Elena O., one of the founding

members of the music ensemble Talancuta,20which was the first

etnofolcloric ensemble established in Moldova. All members of

this ensemble are involved in teaching folklore to children or ado-

lescents, and the ensembles founder and director, Andrei T., is

known for both his work on ethnopedagogy and his leadership of

the folkloric movement. Elena also has four sisters, all of whom are

active in Talancuta. The five sisters also sing together as the Sisters O.

and are among the most well-known and publicly recognized

members of the folkloric movement. On September 22, Elena and





12/24


her sister Maria visited an ethnographer friend of theirs at home. I

was also, coincidentally, visiting their friend, who, upon learning

that I had been trying unsuccessfully to interview the sisters for

quite some time, determined that we would lead the two sistersinto a discussion of their personal histories: how they got involved

in folklore, how and why they started their childrens ensembles,

and how their work has changed over the years.

The story that emerged indicates the range of limitations

experienced by young adults from Moldovas villages as they

tried to establish themselves in the capital city during the early

1980s. Elena came to the State Institute for the Arts (now the

Academy of Music, Theater, and Plastic Arts) in 1980. Her futurehusband introduced her to his brother, Andrei T., who then

involved her in singing folklore. Some of Elenas younger sisters

came to Chisinau in the following few years to study, but the

others cameat least in partto join Elena in singing folklore.

T. had identified several pieces he wanted to stage for which

Elenas voice was not suited; her sisters, however, could sing

these pieces, and were encouraged to join T.s nascent ensemble,

and at the same time formed a subgroup with their sister.Although Talancuta is now a state-funded ensemble, it was orig-

inally composed of music students as an extracurricular club.

Elena and her sisters experienced multiple problems related

to housing in Chisinau. Elena initially came as a student and lived

in a dormitory, but after graduating in 1984, shelike her other

sistershad to get a residency permit to remain in the city.

Surorile O. had become a well-known ensemble by that time, so

Elena sought help from the Ministry of Culture.

E: There was a respected woman at the Ministry of Culture.

I went to see her in 1984 when I had just finished the Art

Institute and I said, give us [a room] in the dormitory

where we liveits still a dormitory for the Art Institute

todaygive Surorile O. a space there because we want

to continue working with folklore. And she replied, you

can keep doing what you are doing, but lookthere are[people] coming from Russia. Lots of musicians, balleri-

nas, are coming and we have to house them, and give




13/24

them apartments. You are from Moldova. You can fall

back where you came [from].

Elenas proposal was turned down by the ministry official on thegrounds that the ministry had to secure housing for visiting

artists. Since Elena and her sisters were born in Moldova, the offi-

cial said the ministry was not, or could not be, responsible for

them. This memory immediately evoked strong comments from

the other two women about the betrayal of local culture by the

same institution thatthey thoughtshould have protected

them most as individuals who were trying to preserve and

develop that same culture. Instead of being employed andhoused in the capital, however, local artists and performers were

sent home to their native villages.

As Elenas account illustrates, many individuals were deeply

affected by the frustrations of not being able to secure housing,

remain in the capital, begin a career related to their education,

and provide for themselves. Folklorists, performers, and ethnog-

raphers were not alone in their difficulties. In the 1980s, legisla-

tion and bureaucratic procedures hindered many individualsfrom securing housing and jobs through official channels, result-

ing in structural discrimination against those individuals who

tried to move out of the placebe it apartment, village, or

republicthat the state had already allocated to them.21 Indeed,

although technically permitted, one could rarely buy a house in

Chisinau without having a residency permit for the city. Yet one

could not obtain a residency permit without having a house,

meaning that it became impossible for people born outside thecity to relocate permanently through legal channels. To get

around these barriers, people relied on friends, and ethnic,

regional, and subregional networks developed as critical factors

in personal advancement throughout the Republic of Moldova. 22

Newcomers to the capital relied heavily on co-villagers or indi-

viduals from nearby villages to help them secure housing, jobs,

and other necessary goods and services in the city, thereby

heightening the social importance of their village origins.Previous authors emphasize the effects that nationality had on

an individuals career options in the Soviet Union.23 Non-Russians,





14/24

for example, were more likely to be trained in the humanities

than the sciences to produce national cultural cadres in each

republic.24 In the realm of performing arts, such as dance, train-

ing was available at both the all-Soviet and republican levels, butthe opportunities were greater for individuals trained in Moscow

and Leningrad, whose professional placement was not limited to

the republic in which they received training but could span the

entire union.25 Ethnicity certainly affected the career choices of

my informants, the majority of whom are ethnic Moldovans. Less

attention, however, has been given to the effects of rural origins

on career choices. Because rural and ethnic origins still overlap

to a significant degree in Moldova, Soviet-era structural discrimi-nation against non-Russians often doubly discriminated against

villagers. In some instances, like housing allocation in the 1980s,

discrimination occurred explicitly in terms of origins: from

Moldova, or not from Moldova. Although the law guaranteed

housing, patterns in its interpretation meant that many people,

after having been educated in the cities, were legally obliged to

return to the villages where they had been born. If they chose to

remain in the cities, they continued to encounter bureaucraticobstacles, and the daily business of normal living forced them to

learn how to habitually circumvent the law. Rather than providing

for its citizens, the state became a source of deprivation and lies,

andultimatelya farce.

Urbanization during the Soviet period

The life trajectories of the individuals described above, likethose of many of the other members of the folkloric community

with whom I worked, are shaped by the wider trends of urbaniza-

tion throughout Moldova after World War II. In this respect, their

experiences as young adults who were born in villages, educated

in the capital or a handful of other cities, and then confronted with

shortages of urban housing and employment opportunities are

shared by a relatively large percentage of the population.

Urbanization generally increased after the founding of theMoldovan Soviet Socialist Republic (MSSR) in 1940. As reported by

Irina Livezeanu, Bessarabias urban areas constituted only 13 percent





15/24


of the total population in 1930.26 By 1959, 22.3 percent of the

MSSRs population was urban. Between 1959 and 1970, the MSSRs

urban areas grew by 76 percent to account for 31.7 percent of the

republics total population. This trend continued into the 1980s,albeit at a slower rate, with rural migrants to cities accounting for

much of the urban growth. Since much of the rural population is

ethnically Moldovan (i.e., Romanian speakers), rural-urban migra-

tion after World War II also had the net effect of changing the ethnic

composition of Moldovas cities. For example, in 1959 Chisinaus

ethnic composition was 32.3 percent Moldovan, 32.2 percent

Russian, 19.9 percent Jewish, 12 percent Ukrainian, and 0.7 per-

cent Gagauz. By 1970 the proportions had changed to 37.2 per-cent Moldovan, 30.7 percent Russian, 14 percent Jewish, 14.2

percent Ukrainian, and 0.7 percent Gagauz.27

While these proportional changes may seem small, they indi-

cate the potential for drastic social change in Moldova. Specifi-

cally, the increased presence of ethnic Moldovans in Chisinau

challenged the capitals identity as a Russian and Jewish city. This

identity developed after Bessarabias incorporation into the

Russian Empire in 1812, as Russian rule in Bessarabia becameincreasingly centralized and the elites gradually Russified through

a variety of linguistic, educational, religious, and administrative

policies.28 Although the Romanian government sought to

re-Romanianize Chisinau with the rest of Bessarabia during the

interwar period, Russian language and culture still dominated

the capital city at the beginning of Soviet rule. In contrast, Soviet

sociologists reported that ethnic Moldovans moving into urban

areas in the 1960s maintained their rural cultural traditions(including music and weddings), even when they linguistically

assimilated to Russian.29 By the 1980s, when my informants came

from their native villages to seek education and work in the cap-

ital city, they could interpret their own difficulties as originating

in the broader processes of urbanization or Moldovanization

then occurring in the republic. From my ongoing discussions

with members of the folkloric community, individual experiences

of urbanization are equally important as those of ethnic discrim-ination in understanding professional trajectories.




16/24

Firsthand experience of rural-to-urban migration also helps

explain the particular appeal of the village to folklorists, per-

formers, and audiences alike in the late 1980s and early 1990s. By

performing the traditions of particular villages, authentic folkloricensembles reached into their audiences memories, activating a

wide and rich body of knowledge about life in the republic, the

organization of social and cultural differences, familial relations

across space, and changing times. The new folk ensembles gave

voice to the new urban populations disorientations, frustrations,

and disappointments by invoking the order, stability, joys, and

comforts of the known and remembered world of villages.

Social Memory and Identity

As specific places and spatially defined social groups, villages

in Moldova constitute what Halbwachs refers to as a framework

of social memory.30 As with other frameworks of memory, vil-

lages help create an experience of social unity and temporal

continuity. Since the majority of Moldovas population has close

family ties to villages, people can weave their individual histories,memories, and experiences into a common narrative of identity.

They use the trope of the village as if this place corresponds to

any and all of Moldovas physically existing villages. Their intimate

experiences in and of actual villages lend a sense of physical real-

ity to their shared and idealized image of the village. Moreover,

the spatial and physical dimensions of real villages help anchor

and organize memory so that it can be retrieved and relived.31

The spatialization of memory in villages provides social andmoral maps that enable newly urban individuals to make life

decisions and construct social relations that lend a sense of con-

tinuity to their changed lives.32

In Moldova, the village serves as both a symbolic and physi-

cal repository of the past that crosses occupational divides.

When folklorists go back to villages (especially their native vil-

lages) for the purposes of research and collection, they external-

ize the act of remembering that otherwise occurs at theindividual and collective levels through discourse. When ordi-

nary people in Chisinau talk about the village, they also go





17/24

back to their pasts. As I discovered in 2001, talk about villages is

constant: at weddings, birthdays, and funerals, people readily

discuss variants in how the celebration is conducted in their vil-

lage; and individuals returning from trips to other villages areregularly asked about the layout of the village, natural surround-

ings, houses, food they were served, and so on. More than idle

or polite conversation, this level of discussion translates into a

wide body of experiential knowledge that people value, display,

and use. Many people know their colleagues home villages and

use this knowledge to interpret an individuals behaviors and

reactions. Villages are known for their social characters as well,

so that people from southern villages, for example, are uniformlyassumed to have hot tempers. Thus, a colleague who is difficult

to work with can be understood, excused, and accommodated if

he or she hails from a southern village. Other villages are con-

sidered to produce individuals who are more or less honest,

proud, calm, or hardworking.

National movement or revolution of villages?

Newly institutionalized folkloric ensembles, festivals, and com-

petitions, however, also function as a vehicle for collective mem-

ory. The ongoing cycle of festivals, broadcast regularly on national

television and radio, reminds audiences of their recent struggle

against Soviet power. Folkloric performances also remind audi-

ences that they asserted a local and indigenous vision of

national identity and culture as part of that struggle. Thus the

folkloric depiction of Moldovan identity through the representa-tion of unique, distinct, and identifiable villages reminds observers

that in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Moldovan nation

mobilizing for independence was not just ethnically and linguis-

tically defined. In addition to claiming their rights to Romanian

language, culture, and history, Moldovans also reclaimed the

positive value of their rural origins.

Indeed, the active role played by villages in the national move-

ment is part and parcel of collective memory about the nationalmovement itself, as indicated by the following incident. On July 3,

2001, I was traveling with a local ethnographer to a conference in





18/24

Iasi, Romania. As we waited at the border for passports to be ver-

ified, another passenger initiated a conversation with my col-

league. In response to questions about our itinerary, my

colleague asked the woman about her home village. Suruceni,the woman replied; my colleague recognized the name, immedi-

ately connecting it to demonstrations in Chisinaus main square

in 1989. She remembered that spectators had been impressed

with the arrival of demonstrators from the village, and had called

out, Look, here comes Suruceni! Having relived this moment

from 1989, the womens conversation then turned to a discus-

sion of the villages history.

As the bus started up again, I asked about the participation ofvillages in the protests of 1989. Did all villages come? When, why,

and how? My colleague could not answer the factual dimensions

of the questions I asked, but she told me why she believed the

appearance of a whole village was significant. It was difficult and

costly, of course, to arrange transportation for so many people.

The police also often prevented busses from reaching the capi-

tal. Thus, the appearance of a village represented a strong com-

mitment from the villagers themselves, but there was alsosomething more to be said about the meaning of a villages

participation. She explained as follows:

When a whole village appears to protest, that is impressive. It is onething when students protest, or children, or women. But when theolder men of the village came out in 1989, dressed in cizme [boots],and each wearing a tall caciula [lambskin hat], you felt as if the talpa

ta

rii [peasantry]

33

was really moving. Men, especially the older ones,are more conservative, less changeable, and harder to bring toprotest. Women are more changeable, and easier to form into agroup to protest something.

In other words, when elderly village men finally appeared in the

capital to protest, my colleague felt as if the whole of society had

united in favor of change.34

Whether or not the presence of village delegations exercised sig-

nificant influence over the development of the protests and politicaldevelopments of 1989-1991 is uncertain and would require further





19/24

research. What is more important than the numerical representa-

tion of village delegations, however, is that people remember the

appearance of particular villages at protests. In this way, collective

memory identifies villages as social actors in the national movement.At one and the same time, memory structures past events into a

coherent narrative and attributes legitimate agency to villages as

social and political actors.35 In general, nations and ethnic groups

everywhere are assumed to have social agency and legitimacy, partly

due to the widespread practice of national historiography.36 In

Moldova, at least, the village also seems to have been attributed

social agency by the general population, as well as by professional

identity specialists who work to communicate the importance of thevillage throughat the very leastfolkloric performance. An accu-

rate analysis of identity politics in Moldova therefore requires atten-

tion to non-ethnic and non-national facets of social identity, such as

those represented by the village.

Nationalism, failed nations, and authentication

The paradoxes of national identity and political behavior inMoldova since 1989 are less surprising when considered from a

longer-term perspective of identity politics in the region.

Specifically, Moldova is a place where the nation-building policies

of modernizing states have failed at least twice. First, Romanian

policies during the inter-war period failed to create a Romanian

nation in Bessarabia,37 and then Soviet policies subsequently

failed to create a Moldovan nation.38 In both cases, the pro-

posed national identity conflicted with local identities and thevalue systems they embodied. In the inter-war period, the low

quality of Romanian administrators sent to Bessarabia seriously

damaged the credibility of the Romanian nation that was sup-

posed to encompass local and regional identities. Rather than

acknowledging the superiority of the Romanian nation as an over-

arching form of political and cultural community, Bessarabias

inhabitants continued to place a high value on Moldovan identity,

despite considering the Moldovan language unfit for public use.Yet, when later Soviet policies emphasized the rural dimensions of





20/24

Moldovan identity, they also failed to convince first linguists and

then the educated public.39 In both cases, national identities failed

because they did not attain local standards of moral integrity and

truth, despite being historically and sociologically defensible.This twice-repeated failure of nation-building on the territory

of todays Republic of Moldova invites further consideration of

the dynamics between national and non-national forms of iden-

tity in the region. First and significantly, local Moldovan identity

has resisted both subordination as a regional component of a

national identity, and elaboration into a national identity per

se. This fact should draw our attention to a local value hierarchy

in which the rural and local are valued in opposition to a centralstate, even as literacy and the markers of high culture are also

valued. The rejection of the Soviet version of the Moldovan

nation in the 1980s should therefore not be interpreted as evidence

that the real national identity of Moldovas ethnic majority is

simply Romanian. Both termsMoldovan andRomanianare

attached to more complex associations, values, and memories

based on the relations between state and local forms of power,

rural and urban experiences, and the opportunities that comewith each (e.g., education). Depending on the social, moral, and

cultural qualities with which they are infused, either term may be

used to adequately capture the dynamics of local identity. In the

hands of both the Romanian and Soviet states, however, each

term has proved inadequate.

Rather than trying to arbitrate between the application of one

ethnonym over the other, scholars studying the Moldovan-

Romanian question are in a position to say at least two impor-tant things about nationalism and nation-building. On one hand,

Moldovas experience with failed nation-building should encour-

age a reconsideration of constructivist accounts of nationalism

and nation-building.40 In contrast to Ernest Gellners assertion

that any old shred and patch [of culture] will serve the inter-

ests of a state in constructing a national identity that secures its

citizens loyalty,41 Moldovas history demonstrates that people

may collectively reject an identity, even if they originally acceptedit. Indeed, even if the parameters of an identity are imagined by

the state or its agents, the identity can only become a social





21/24

force if it is authenticated and legitimated by the subjects who

will adopt it.42 Successful identity projects resonate with the

lifeworld of their subjects.Conversely, an identity project is likely

to fail if it does not resonate with a groups intersubjectively heldknowledge claims.43 Moldovas history of failed nation-building

projects points to a variety of flaws in the constructivist model,

including the assumption that capitalistic consumption practices

provide a satisfactory analogue for understanding identity.

On the other hand, introducing villages into the discussion

of nationalism and identity politics in Moldova should highlight

the moral and associative dimensions of all forms of collective

identity, including the nation. Alexander Motyls discussionmakes clear that the nation (and the state it represents)

may not be forms of community that resonate with a particu-

lar lifeworld. Or, the nation form may resonate, but not the

particular version and image presented to a community, no

matter how much it draws on existing culture.44 The current

prominence of the village in social discourse, folklore and

the arts, and memories of 1989 points to a form of community

that captures important elements of the lifeworld of con-temporary ethnic Moldovans. Thus, to understand why national

identities have succeeded in part and failed in general, one

needs to ask also about the relationship between the nation and

the village.

Conclusion: Expanding the National Question

From a political perspective, the national question that needsasking is not whether the population inhabits a Romanian or

Moldovan lifeworld, but whether the state has succeeded in

embodying the lifeworld at all. If it has not, then we should also

expect that the state is not fully legitimate in the eyes of its citizens,

and that acknowledgment should transform our approach to ana-

lyzing political developments. We can do this by exploring the roles

of non-ethnic and non-national forms of collective identity, such as

villages, as well as the intersection of these identities with national-ism at critical moments in the regions political evolution.





22/24


Notes

1. Charles King, The Moldovans: Romania, Russia, and the Politics of Culture (Stanford,

Calif.: Hoover Institution Press, 2000), 169-70.

2. Claus Neukirch, National Minorities in the Republic of Moldova: Some Lessons Learned,

Some Not?South-East Europe Review (March 1999): 45-64.3. For an example of this problematization, see Michael Gondek, One Nation, Two States: The

Transition from the Moldovan Soviet Socialist Republic to the Independent Republic of Moldova

and the Politics of Language (masters thesis, Providence College, Rhode Island, 1997).

4. I am using a rounded figure of 65 percent for the ethnic Moldovan population as recorded

in the 1989 census; the 2004 census records a higher percentage (84 percent), but as the

more recent data collection was fraught with difficulties, I err on the conservative side withthe earlier figures. For a close linguistic consideration of the Romanian and Moldovan lan-

guages, see Donald Dyer, The Making of the Moldavian Language, in Studies in

Moldovan: The History, Culture, Language and Contemporary Politics of the People of

Moldova, ed. Donald Dyer (Boulder, Colo.: East European Monographs, 1996).

5. For accounts of the history and demands of the nationalist movement, see William

Crowther, Moldova: Caught between Nation and Empire, in New States, New Politics:Building the Post-Soviet Nations, ed. Ian Bremmer and Ray Taras (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 1997); and Roman Solchanyk, Ukraine, Belorussia, and Moldavia: Imperial

Integration, Russification, and the Struggle for National Survival, in The Nationalities

Factor in Soviet Politics and Society, ed. Lubomyr Hajda and Mark Beissiger (Boulder,

Colo.: Westview, 1990).

6. The sense of paradox in Moldovas recent history is also heightened by the dominant his-

toriographical approach of documenting the indisputable Romanian identity of Moldovas

population and the illegitimacy of Soviet rule. Examples of often consulted histories of

Moldova that take this approach include Michael Bruchis, One Step Back, Two Steps

Forward: On the Language Policy of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in the

National Republics (Moldavian: A Look Back, a Survey, and Perspectives, 1924-1980)

(Boulder, Colo.: East European Monographs, 1982); Michael Bruchis, NationsNationalitiesPeople: A Study of the Nationalities Policy of the Communist Party in Soviet

Moldavia (Boulder, Colo.: East European Monographs, 1984); Nicholas Dima, Bessarabia

and Bukovina: The Soviet-Romanian Territorial Dispute (Boulder, Colo.: East European

Monographs, 1982); and Nicholas Dima, From Moldavia to Moldova: The Soviet-

Romanian Territorial Dispute (Boulder, Colo.: East European Monographs, 1991). These

sources contain valuable information, but treat the question of political legitimacy exter-nally as a choice between two alternative states; they do not treat the question of legitimacy

itself as perceived internally and locally.

7. Stuart Kaufman, Spiraling to Ethnic War: Elites, Masses, and Moscow in Moldovas Civil

War,International Security 21 (Fall 1996): 108-38.

8. Most authors identify a constellation of mutually intersecting factors, including some (like

elite politics) not listed separately above. For extended analyses, see King, The Moldovans;and Gondek, One Nation, Two States. The results of political opinion surveys given to

Romanian citizens, ethnic Moldovans, and minority citizens of the Republic of Moldova are

reported by William Crowther, The Construction of Moldovan National Consciousness,

in Beyond Borders: Remaking Cultural Identities in the New East and Central Europe,

ed. Lszl Krti and Juliet Langman (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1997).

9. King, The Moldovans, 148-49, 166.

10. Tom Gallagher,Romania after Ceausescu (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1995), 187.

11. Tom Gallagher, Nationalism and Romanian Political Culture in the 1990s, in Post-

Communist Romania: Coming to Terms with the Transition, ed. Duncan Light and David

Phinnemore (Houndsmill, UK: Palgrave, 2001), 104-24.

12. Irina Livezeanu, Cultural Politics in Greater Romania: Regionalism, Nation-Building,

and Ethnic Struggle, 1918-1930 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1995), 100-1.13. Several authors report contemporary assessments of Romanian administration in

Bessarabia; among them are King, The Moldovans, 41-51; and Livezeanu, Cultural Politics.

14. The woman quoted above, for instance, speaks from a mix of perspectives. Born into

a mixed Jewish-Moldovan family in the town of Calaras, she now lives in the capital and




23/24


self-identifies only as Moldovan. Although she was a factory worker, her sisters family is an

intellectual family, with some members having been active in the nationalist movement.

15. This anecdote should not be taken to reflect widespread favorable memories of the German

presence in Moldova, however, as there are also many negative memories, including stories

of family members having been abducted and sent to work in German factories. Rather, this

argument should be interpreted as reflecting on the negative memories of both Russian-Soviet and Romanian rule. While individuals tend to portray one ruler as worse than the

other (as with the man above who preferred Soviet rule), this particular discussion

resolved itself in an agreement about what life should be like (orderly, clean, respect for

women, and pay for goods and service) instead of a stalemate between the two sides.

16. Folkloric involvement with late-Soviet nationalist movements was not isolated to Moldova;Padraic Kenney and Mary Doi document some of the other possible connections between

folklore and nationalism in Ukraine and Uzbekistan, respectively. See Padraic Kenney, ACarnival of Revolution: Central Europe 1989 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press,

2002); and Mary Doi, Gesture, Gender, Nation: Dance and Social Change in Uzbekistan(Westport, Conn.: Bergin and Garvey, 2002).

17. For a longer discussion of the relationship between ethnicity and authenticity in these folk-

loric performances, see Jennifer Cash, In Search of an Authentic Nation: FolkloricEnsembles, Ethnography, and Ethnicity in the Republic of Moldova (Ph.D. diss., Indiana

University, 2004).

18. John Cole, Anthropology Comes Part-Way Home: Community Studies in Europe,Annual

Review of Anthropology 6 (1977): 349-78; Joel Martin Halpern and David Kideckel,

Anthropology of Eastern Europe, Annual Review of Anthropology 12 (1983): 377-402;

Tams Hofer, Anthropologists and Native Ethnographers in Central European Villages:

Comparative Notes on the Professional Personality of Two Disciplines, Current

Anthropology 9, no. 4 (1968): 311-15; and Bela Maday, Hungarian Anthropology: The

Problem of Communication, Current Anthropology 9, nos. 2-3 (1968): 180-84.

19. In accordance with the respondents wishes, names have not been changed. It would, in

addition, be futile to do so considering that these individuals are public figures and have

achieved wide recognition for their artistic work. For consistency, however, I maintain theconvention of replacing last names with an initial that was adopted by the Romanian pub-

lishers for the earlier version of this article.

20. Talancuta is the diminutive form of talanca and talanga, both Romanian words for the

bell put on the necks of cows and sheep.

21. R. A. Frenchs analysis of urbanization throughout the Soviet Union suggests that the ongo-ing housing shortage worked to prevent the social stratification of cities, neighborhoods,

and apartment buildings as much as, if not more than, planning strategies themselves.

Although individuals tried to influence their housing placement, they were thankful to get

whatever was offered. R. A. French, The Individuality of the Soviet City, in The Socialist

City: Spatial Structure and Urban Policy, ed. R. A. French and F. E. Ian Hamilton

(Chichester, UK: Wiley, 1979), 98.

22. King (in The Moldovans, 131-42) also points to the existence and importance of such net-works in building the national movement.

23. Gerhard Simon,Nationalism and Policy toward the Nationalities in the Soviet Union: From

Totalitarian Dictatorship to Post-Stalinist Society, trans. Karen and Oswald Forster (Boulder,

Colo.: Westview, 1991); and Ronald Suny, State, Civil Society and Ethnic Cultural

Consolidation in the USSR: The Roots of the National Question, in The Soviet System: From

Crisis to Collapse, ed. Alexander Dallin and G. W. Lapides (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1995).

24. Simon,Nationalism and Policy.

25. Mary Grace Swift, The Art of the Dance in the U.S.S.R. (Notre Dame, Ind.: Notre Dame

Press, 1968), 204-20.

26. Irina Livezeanu, Urbanization in a Low Key and Linguistic Change in Soviet Moldavia, Part

1,Soviet Studies 33, no. 3 (1981): 335.

27. Livezeanu, Urbanization, Part 1, 334.28. Livezeanu, Cultural Politics, 93-97.

29. Irina Livezeanu, Urbanization in a Low Key and Linguistic Change in Soviet Moldavia, Part

2,Soviet Studies 33, no. 4 (1981): 581.




24/24

30. Maurice Halbwachs, On Collective Memory, ed. and trans. Lewis Coser (Chicago:

University of Chicago Press, 1992).

31. Jolle Bahloul, The Architecture of Memory: A Jewish-Muslim Household in Colonial

Algeria, 1937-62 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 28.

32. James Ferguson, The Country and the City on the Copperbelt, in Culture, Power, Place:

Explorations in Critical Anthropology, ed. Akhil Gupta and James Ferguson (Durham,N.C.: Duke University Press, 1997).

33. Translatable as the sole of the earth, the phrase talpa tarii refers to the peasantry, specif-

ically reflecting the understanding that in the past, [the peasantry] was considered the

countrys foundation, obliged to carry the full difficulty of duties; see Dictionarul

Explicativ al Limbii Romne (Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, 1998), 1068.34. During the summer of 2006, a young music teacher was musing on the differences she imag-

ined to exist between the United States and Moldova. You, she concluded, are Stateleunite; we aresatele unite (You are the United States; we are the united villages). Retelling

this anecdote to a group of historians after having presented my research to them, an older

historian responded, Indeed, our problem is that we are not as united as we should be.

35. Andrew Lass, From Memory to History: The Events of November 17 Dis/Membered, in

Memory, History, and Opposition under State Socialism, ed. Rubie Watson (Santa Fe,N.M.: School of American Research Press, 1994).

36. Eric Wolf,Europe and the People without History (Berkeley: University of California Press,

1982).

37. Livezeanu, Cultural Politics.

38. King, The Moldovans.

39. Charles King, The Politics of Language in Moldova, 1924-1994 (Ph.D. thesis, University of

Oxford, 1995).

40. Examples of the constructivist perspective include such often cited scholars as Benedict

Anderson,Imagined Communities (New York: Verso, 1991); Ernest Gellner,Nations and

Nationalism (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1983); and Eric Hobsbawm and

Terence Ranger, eds., The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

1983). The commonality in these approaches is to view collective identities, particularlythose of ethnic groups and nations, not as givens but as historical, cultural, political, soci-

ological, and even economic artifacts produced under certain conditions. Modern states,

in particular, are given primary control over creating, disseminating, and controlling

national identities through the production of images and information. For this reason,

Michael Herzfeld adds imaged to the list of modes (such as invention and imagination)in which nations are produced, reflecting the heavy emphasis that constructivists place on

representation. Michael Herzfeld, Localism and the Logic of Nationalistic Folklore: Cretan

Reflections, Comparative Studies in Society and History (2003): 281-310, 307 n. 19.

41. Gellner,Nations and Nationalism, 56.

42. Gupta and Ferguson, Culture, Power, Place.

43. Alexander Motyl, Inventing Invention: The Limits of National Identity Formation, in

Intellectuals and the Articulation of the Nation, ed. Ronald Grigor Suny and MichaelKennedy (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001), 62.

44. Royces concept of double boundaries also speaks to these issues. She notes that ethnic

groups do not have a single boundary but a double one, because members of an ethnic com-

munity use different and usually more subtle criteria to recognize their common identity

than do outsiders who define them. Whereas outsiders tend to focus on common cultural

traits (e.g., language), insiders may emphasize subtler issues involving the proper perfor-

mance of group values. Anya Peterson Royce, Ethnic Identity: Strategies of Diversity(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982). In this respect, Spicers discussion of persis-

tent identities is also relevant, as he notes that for many groups, the cultural markers that ini-

tially distinguish them can change almost completely without the group losing its distinct

identity. Again, cultural identity requires a combination of values and cultural elements

through which those values can be embodied and communicated. Edward Spicer, PersistentCultural Systems: A Comparative Study of Identity Systems that Can Adapt to Contrasting

Environments,Science 174 (1971): 795-800.


Documents

Origins Memory and Identity Villages and the Politics of Nationalism in the RM