| Regions with significant populations | |
|---|---|
| Romania: estimated: 6-7 million [1] Moldova: 4,300 (1999) [11] Kyrgyzstan: 778 (1999) [12] Estonia 645 (2000) [13] Tajikistan: 300 (2000) [14] | |
| Languages | |
| Moldovan/Romanian | |
| Religion | |
| Predominantly Eastern Orthodox. | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
|
• Vlachs |
Moldovans, or Moldavians (original name: Moldoveni; Молдовень is used by the Moldovan Cyrillic script, which nowadays has official status only in Transnistria) are the native population in, depending on one's interpretation, all or part of the lands that correspond to the former Principality of Moldavia. In the Republic of Moldova, the term Moldovans is sometimes used to officially denote an ethnicity separate from Romanians[8] Otherwise, the Moldovans are considered to be of the same etnicity like the Romanians.[9] However, the census from 2004 does not contain any question about the ethnicity, but only about the nationality.[10]
The recognition of Moldovans as a separate ethnicity, distinct from Romanians, is nevertheless a relatively new and controversial subject, having it's roots in the Stalinist era.[11] Outside of the Moldovan Republic, this group is currently recognized as a minority ethnic group only by several former Soviet republics.
Population edit
The highest numer of Moldovans live in Romania, the country that also shares the biggest part of the former Moldovan Principality. In Romania some six or seven million people consider themselves to be Moldovans as an integral part of, not distinct from, the Romanian nation [8]. In 2007 a number of Romanian citizens have attempted to seek official recognition of the minority status for the Moldovans in Romania. Around the same time, during a visit of three delegates of this movement in Moldova, Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin spoke of 10 million Moldovans living in the neighbouring country, though this number may be exaggerated.[8] People who declared themselves Moldovans in the last Romanian census were reported as Romanians in the census results.[12]
Moldovans constitute 76.1% of the population of Moldova.[10] In the breakaway region of Transnistria, in the eastern part of the country, they compose a plurality with 31.9% of the population.
The 2001 census in Ukraine counted 258,600 Moldovans. They live mostly in the Budjak region or south-west Odessa Oblast and the Novoselytskyi Raion, but also in other areas of Odessa Oblast, bordering the Republic of Moldova. [13]
History edit
.JPG)
Blue: Southern varieties
Red: Northern varieties
The Moldovans speak the Moldovan variety
Until the 1920s, specialists generally considered the Moldovans a subgroup or regional group of the Romanian ethnos.[14] After 1924, Soviet authorities began to emphasize a distinct Moldovan language, history and culture, and to support the claim that Moldovans constitute a separate ethnic group.[15] Soviet policy on the Moldovan language and identity was not constant: there were two intervals (1932-1937 and in the mid-1950s) during which the Soviet scholars declared the unity between the two languages.[16]
Numerous Romanians, as well as a part of the Moldovan population, claim that external interference rather than any actual differences led to Moldova's increasingly separate identity.[15] Despite this, Moldovans have pressed for recognition of an ethnic Moldovan identity, separate from that of Romanians. In the 2004 census, out of the 3,383,332 people living in Moldova, 16.5% (558,508) chose Romanian as their mother tongue, whereas 60% chose Moldovan. While 37% of all urban Romanian/Moldovan speakers chose Romanian as their mother tongue, in the countryside this percentage was just under 15.[17]
Religion edit
The major denomination in both Moldova and Romania is Eastern Orthodox Christianity. The difference between Moldova and Romania is the acceptance of different bishops authority (see Eastern Orthodox Church organization), expressed as affiliation to distinct autocefalous churches (respectively Russian and Romanian) within the Eastern Orthodox communion. Basically, in Moldova there is an ongoing politically charged bishop territorial jurisdiction and administrative succesional issue which, from an ecclesiastical point of view, is subject to canon laws (not a faith related, theological, or denominational difference). Thus, most Eastern Orthodox in Moldova belong to the autonomous Moldovan Orthodox Church, which depends on the Russian Orthodox Church. Immediately after Moldova declared independence from the Soviet Union (1991), the Romanian Orthodox Church reactivated a previous structure, forming the autonomous Metropolis of Bessarabia (1992), which was only officially recognized in 2002. The dispute's subject is the succession of the pre-WWII Metropolitan See of Bessarabia, the Supreme Court of Moldova ruling in favor of the Moldovan Orthodox Church, while the European Court of Human Rights in favor of the Metropolis of Bessarabia. It is also an open issue between the Russian and Romanian Orthodox Churches. As of 2007, the Moldovan Orthodox Church has 1255 parishes, while the Metropolis of Bessarabia has 219. [15]
Moldovan ethnos theory and the Romanian identity edit
Moldovan ethnos theory edit
In the past, the term Moldavian/Moldovan has been used to refer to the population of the historical Principality of Moldavia. Nevertheless, after 1924, Soviet sociologists began using the term to demonstrate the distinctiveness of the natives of Bessarabia, in a movement called Moldovenism. On December 19, 2003, the Moldovan Parliament adopted "The Concept on National Policy of the Republic of Moldova" which critics have accused is a revival of the Soviet-style Moldovenist theories. The document states that Moldovans and Romanians are two distinct peoples and speak two different languages, Romanians form an ethnic minority in Moldova, and that the Republic of Moldova is the legitimate successor to the Principality.[18]
Today, Moldovans are recognized as an ethnic group by several ex-Soviet countries. Presently, the largest number of people who declared their ethnicity as Moldovan live in the Republic of Moldova, where according to the 2004 Census, they comprise 76.1% of the population[10]. In Ukraine, according to that country's census in 2001, Moldovans constitute a recognized ethnic minority of 0.53% (7.28% in Chernivtsi Oblast and 5.01% in Odessa Oblast).[13]
Romanian identity edit
On the other side of the debate, the arguments go that the self-designation of Romanians living in Transilvania, Wallachia and the Principality of Moldova as Romans is mentioned in scholarly works as early as the 16th century, such as works of Italian humanists traveling to those lands. Thus, Tranquillo Andronico writes in 1534 that Vlachs "now call themselves Romans".[19] In 1532, Francesco della Valle accompanying Governor Aloisio Gritti to Transylvania, Wallachia and Moldavia notes that Romanians preserved the name of the Romans (Romani) and "they call themselves in their language Romei".[20] Ferrante Capeci writes around 1575 that the inhabitants of these countries call themselves “Romanesci”, [21] Other evidence about the name "Romanians" used by Moldovans to call themselves comes from authors having lived in the these principalities, such as Anton Verancsics, who writes around 1570 that Romanians living in Transylvania, Moldavia and Wallachia call themselves "Romans"[22]
As the appellative "Romanian" was gaining more and more popularity throughout the western Ottoman-dominated Moldavia during the 19th century, its introduction in Bessarabia, a province of the Russian Empire at the time, was welcomed mostly by the Romanian-oriented elite, while the majority of local population remained largely indifferent to the question of nationality, often opting for the old demonym "Moldavians".[23]
Modern controversy edit
In Romania, there was no Moldovan ethnicity reported in the 2002 census, and people whose self-identification is considered regional by the Romanian government having been counted as Romanians.[24] In the CIA World Factbook[25] a single entry "Moldovan/Romanian" is used. A group of international census experts observing the census had stated that "the census had been generally conducted in a professional manner", however, they also identified certain problems in the collection of data for this census, among others in the domain of nationality and language. Experts have noted that large part of the population has responded spontaneously, however they have reported some cases when the census enumerators have encouraged respondents to declare that they were "Moldovans" rather than "Romanians".[26] According to BBC, European observers that monitored the 2004 Moldovan census contested the data about the spoken language and the ethnic affiliation in reference to Moldovan-Romanian debate, noting that these data can not be considered as expressing the truth.[27]
See also edit
References edit
- ^ "Official Chisinau Seeks Recognition Of Moldovan Ethnicity And Minority In Romania" The Jamestown Foundation, February 28, 2007, by Vladimir Socor: In Romania, some six or seven million people consider themselves to be “Moldovans” as an integral part of, not distinct from, the Romanian nation
- ^ [1]
- ^ [2]
- ^ [3]
- ^ "Foreign citizens. Resident Population" (2006) at the Istituto nazionale di statistica
- ^ Census data
- ^ If the Moldovans from Romania are included here
- ^ a b c "Official Chisinau Seeks Recognition Of Moldovan Ethnicity And Minority In Romania" The Jamestown Foundation, February 28, 2007, by Vladimir Socor.
- ^ The official site of the Moldovan Ministry of Culture and Turism: Moldova is a European Country, which has a rich ethnic history. The majority of the population are Moldovans (Romanians),[...]
- ^ a b c 2004 census results in Moldova
- ^ Library of the US Congress Country Study, Moldova - Language, Religion and Culture - Language: "Stalin justified the creation of the Moldavian SSR by claiming that a distinct 'Moldavian' language was an indicator that 'Moldavians' were a separate nationality from the Romanians in Romania. In order to give greater credence to this claim, in 1940 Stalin imposed the Cyrillic alphabet on 'Moldavian' to make it look more like Russian and less like Romanian; archaic Romanian words of Slavic origin were imposed on "Moldavian"; Russian loanwords and phrases were added to 'Moldavian'; and a new theory was advanced that "Moldavian" was at least partially Slavic in origin. (Romanian is a Romance language descended from Latin.) In 1949 Moldavian citizens were publicly reprimanded in a journal for daring to express themselves in literary Romanian. The Soviet government continued this type of behavior for decades. Proper names in Moldova were subjected to Russianization as well. Russian endings were added to purely Romanian names, and individuals were referred to in the Russian manner by using a patronymic (based on one's father's first name) as a middle name." [4]
- ^ The Handbook of the Census Staff, 2001, at UNECE website
- ^ a b [5], [6], [7], [8] 2001 census results in Ukraine
- ^ King, pg. 2
- ^ a b King, pg. 3
- ^ Michael Bruchis. The Language Policy of the CPSU and the Linguistic Situation in Soviet Moldavia, in Soviet Studies, Vol. 36, No. 1. (Jan., 1984), pp. 119.
- ^ National Bureau of Statistics of the Republic of Moldova: Census 2004
- ^ Gribincea A., Grecu, M. The Concept on National Policy of the Republic of Moldova UNHCR.
- ^ "nunc se Romanos vocant" A. Verres, Acta et Epistolae, I, p. 243
- ^ Cl. Isopescu, Notizie intorno ai romeni nella letteratura geografica italiana del Cinquecento, in Bulletin de la Section Historique, XVI, 1929, p. 1- 90
- ^ “Anzi essi si chiamano romanesci, e vogliono molti che erano mandati quì quei che erano dannati a cavar metalli...” in Maria Holban, Călători străini despre Ţările Române, vol. II, p. 158–161
- ^ „...Valacchi, qui se Romanos nominant...„ “Gens quae ear terras (Transsylvaniam, Moldaviam et Transalpinam) nostra aetate incolit, Valacchi sunt, eaque a Romania ducit originem, tametsi nomine longe alieno...“ De situ Transsylvaniae, Moldaviae et Transaplinae, in Monumenta Hungariae Historica, Scriptores; II, Pesta, 1857, p. 120
- ^ Cristina Petrescu, "Contrasting/Conflicting Identities:Bessarabians, Romanians, Moldovans" in Nation-Building and Contested Identities, Polirom, 2001, pg. 157
- ^ (in Romanian)[9]
- ^ Moldova CIA World Factbook. Retrieved 2002, 07-17
- ^ Experts Offering to Consult the National Statistics Bureau in Evaluation of the Census Data, Moldova Azi, May 19, 2005, story attributed to AP Flux. Retrieved October 11, 2005.
- ^ BBC, 29 Nov. 2007
Further reading edit
- Matthew H. Ciscel (2007) The Language of the Moldovans: Romania, Russia, and Identity in an Ex-Soviet Republic", ISBN 0739114433 - About the identity of the contemporary Moldovans in the context of debates about the their language.
- King, C. (2000) The Moldovans: Romania, Russia and the Politics of Culture, Hoover Institution Press, ISBN 0-8179-9792-X.