The National Revivals in Moldova

Abstract

The appearance of national revivals all over the USSR made many Western laypeople as well as scholars aware of the existence of nation-groups which they had never heard of before. The Gagauz of southern Moldova was one such example. Thus, the case of Moldova provides a relatively rare instance of no less than three simultaneous national revivals in a rather small territory. Yet, although Moldovans, Slays, and Gagauz initiated national revivals, and although these revivals led not only to a separation of the Moldavian SSR from the USSR but also to a de facto partition into three political-territorial units and violent conflict between the Moldovans and the Slays, the Western media did not pay any particular attention to these events. The national revivals among the Baltic nation-groups and among the nation-groups in the Balkans received much more attention. Nevertheless, due to the afore-mentioned characteristics of the case of the national revivals in Moldova, we think these national revivals and their causes deserve a closer examination.