Moldavian SSR
The
Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (
Moldovan Cyrillic: Република Советикэ Сочиалистэ Молдовеняскэ,
Romanian: Republica Sovietică Socialistă Moldovenească,
Russian: Молда́вская Сове́тская Социалисти́ческая Респу́блика) was a constituent republic of the
Soviet Union from 1940 to 1941 and from 1945 to 1990.
Main article: History of the MSSR
Previously, on
October 12 1924 the Soviet Union set up an autonomous
Moldavian ASSR as a part of the
Ukrainian SSR between
Dniester and
Bug rivers, and it gave many rights to the Romanian minority there, possibly to encourage a dissent of the Romanian Moldavians.
The
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between Soviet Union and Hitler's Reich brought the teritories of
Romania situated east of
Prut into the Soviet Union in the summer of 1940, and a new Moldavian SSR was reorganised between
Dniester and
Prut rivers, the old Moldavian ASSR being dismantled, save the area of
Transnistria which was assigned to the new Moldavian SSR. The date of the transformation of Moldavian ASSR into Moldavian SSR and its split from the
Ukrainian SSR to become a separate republic of the
USSR was
August 2 1940.
Romania joined Hitler's Reich in the summer of 1941 and took part in the Nazi occupation of the Soviet Union. By the end of
World War II the Soviet Union recovered Eastern Moldavia and reorganised it again as Moldavian SSR.
The republic's name was changed to the
Republic of Moldova on
May 23 1991, and it declared independence after the attempted
coup in the Soviet Union, exiting from the
USSR on
August 27 1991. After an initial desire to unify with Romania, a civil war began in Transnistria in 1992 and since, the Moldovan government has no control of this region.
|
Distribution of major ethnic groups in Moldavian SSR, 1989 |
Much of the pre-WWII elite of Moldova (the "
intellectuals" and the "
bourgeoisie"), as well as hundreds of thousands of ordinary people were killed or deported, especially to
Siberia and to the Asian steppes such as those of
Kazakhstan (in 1940 and then massively in 1949). (Even nowadays, there are tens of thousands of Romanians living there.) A large influx of Ukrainians and Russians after the second world war created a 13% Russian-speaking minority in Moldova.
Moldovans were encouraged to adopt the
Russian language, which was required in order to get a public job (Russian was supposed to be the language of international communication). Political and academic positions were given to members of non-Romanian ethnic groups (only 14% of the Moldavian SSR's political leaders were ethnic Moldovans in 1946), although this changed as time went on.
The USSR government encouraged the developing of a "
Moldavian culture", said to be distinct from the Romanian one, as well as a
Moldavian language, which was claimed to be different from
Romanian (although even some Soviet linguists disagreed with this). Literary critics stressed the Russian influence on Moldovan literature and ignored the parts shared with Romanian literature. In order to emphasize the alleged differences and to break ties with Romania, Moldovan language was written with the
Cyrillic alphabet. Some towns and villages had their names changed to more Slavic-sounding or were renamed after various Communist leaders.
Soviet propaganda included the doctrine that the Romanians oppressed the Moldavian people before World War II and that they were liberated by the Soviets.
Ethnicities (1989 est.):
*
Moldovans 64,5%
*
Ukrainians 13.8%
*
Russians 13%
*
Bulgarians 2%
*
Jews 1.5%
*
Gagauz and other 5.2%
Although it was the most densely populated republic of the USSR, the Moldavian SSR was meant to be specialized in agriculture, notably fruit production. The only region of Moldova in which industry was built was Transnistria, which in 1990 accounted for 40% of Moldavian GDP and 90% of its electricity production.
