The Convolutions of Historical Politics

The “Politics of Memory” and “Historical Policy” in Post-Soviet Moldova

The “Politics of Memory” and “Historical Policy” in Post-Soviet Moldova AnDrei cuSco The connection between history, politics and “collective memory” in Eastern Europe is particularly complex, multi-layered and fragmented. This state of affairs led, among other things, to the active involvement of professional historians in various nation-building projects and, more broadly, in the politicization of the past. The latter tendency serves as a legitimizing strategy for the intellectual and political elites within the post-Soviet space. The case of the Republic of Moldova confirms this general assessment, but is further complicated by the endless debates concerning the national identity of the country’s majority ethnic group. There is no consensus within Moldovan society on the issue of defining the essence, boundaries, or basic values of the nation as an “imagined community.” After the disintegration of the USSR, followed by the proclamation of independence in August 1991, the majority of Moldovan historians uncritically accepted a simplified version of the Romanian national historiography, which replaced the discredited “Soviet model” while preserving a number of the Soviet-style essentialist and outdated methodological tenets.1 At the same time, most of the post-Soviet political elite aimed at strengthening the newly acquired Moldovan “statehood.” This also presupposed the pursuit of a special kind of “politics of memory,” which distanced itself both from the Romanian national narrative and (although to a lesser extent) from the Soviet past. 1 For a more detailed discussion of the subject, see Taki, Cusco, “Kto my? Istoriograficheskii vybor: Rumynskaia natsiia ili moldavskaia gosudarstvennost ’” Ab Imperio 1, 2003 485–495. 176 The Convolutions of Historical Politics To put it differently, an antagonism between two mutually exclusive variants of local nationalism—and of associated memorial practices —emerged in the Moldovan case. The advocates of “pan-Romanian nationalism,” who claim that the Moldovans are a part of the “greater Romanian nation,” had a staunchly negative view of the Soviet period, dismissing it as an era of foreign domination and “occupation .” They accordingly idealized the epoch of Bessarabia’s inclusion into “Greater Romania” (1918 –1940). The supporters of the opposite ideological current—”Moldovanism”—were in many ways recycling the Soviet-era conceptual legacy, attempting to use certain categories of ethnic nationalism as well. They strove to prove the existence of an uninterrupted tradition of Moldovan statehood, finding its purported roots in the Middle Ages and emphasizing the (mythical) continuity between the medieval Moldavian Principality and the contemporary political entities which emerged on the territory of Bessarabia. A sort of fine balance between these two visions of Moldovan identity prevailed for much of the post-1991 period: the “Romanianists” dominated the academic circles and the university milieu, while the moderate “Moldovanists” enjoyed the support of the government, but ultimately failed to significantly undermine the strong positions of their adversaries in the educational system. Thus, the “politics of memory” in the Moldovan context was often reducible to the symbolic competition and conflict between the two antagonistic projects of the local national identity. Within the framework of this “zero-sum game,” the 20th century was the most contested period, while the interpretation of the events of 1917–1918, the years of Romanian administration, World War II, the Holocaust on the territory of Bessarabia, and the Soviet legacy represented as many objects of heated and ideologically charged debates and of political manipulation. Moldovan historians were far from adopting the position of “neutral observers” or non-involved scholars. On the contrary, they became direct participants of these “memory wars.” The dilemma of professional ethics versus political bias was at best secondary for the protagonists , and quite often this question was not posed at all. The professional historians assumed the mantle of militant intellectuals and openly promoted a certain version of the “politics of memory.” At the same time, any significant initiatives in this sphere coming from “below” (e.g., from civil society) were conspicuously lacking. 177 The “Politics of Memory” and “Historical Policy” in Post-Soviet Moldova The relevance of the public “memory discourse” can be examined at least from two points of view. On the one hand, the “politics of memory” in post-Soviet Moldova is linked to the fundamental significance of the nation—and, consequently, of “national memory”—for the competing identity projects of the Moldovan intellectual and political elites. This observation is just as valid in the case of the “Romanianists ” as in that of their ideological foes—the “Moldovanists.” Collective...