Opinion: Language Issue Continues Splitting the Moldovan Society

The language issue that the Moldova political elite left to drift, now threatens the republic with serious consequences, RTA expert Semion Albu said. Semion ALBU, RTA: Yesterday Moldova, continuing to celebrate its independence anniversary, marked as well the day of the state language. On this occasion, many Moldovan politicians did not fail to address the best wishes to the inhabitants of the republic, speaking about the language as of a unifying force and basis of Moldovan identity. The "uniting" potential was in fact so great that for some reason each of the high state and party officials had their own version as to what language holiday they congratulated their fellow citizens on. The easiest thing in this regard is the pro-European opposition - they talked bluntly about Basarabians and their native Romanian language, which “rose after 1989” (according to Maia Sandu) and which “is no way to be left dying on the left bank of the Prut” (according to Andrei Nastase) There were no particular doubts about this issue among some international partners: for example, the head of the European Union Delegation Peter Michalko, on the holiday occasion, read a piece of Mihai Eminescu's poem, as he himself noted, in Romanian. Our republic’ main Moldovenists yesterday clearly tried to maneuver, not mentioning the name of the language they celebrated. Only President Igor Dodon called things their proper names: there are those who consider the language to be Moldovan (such, in his opinion, the majority), there are those who are Romanian, but “this should not divide people”. The head of the republic is right: indeed, the majority of the country's inhabitants still call their language Moldovan. However, the situation is changing dramatically, and so are the proportions in sociological research. The latter show that more and more people, especially in cities and among young people, define their language as Romanian. It turns out that the Moldovan language in Moldova itself is being in the position of a poor relative, which some political forces do not need at all, while others need it, but for the most part solely for electoral purposes. After all, all inveterate Moldovans, for some reason immediately become very flexible in this matter when reaching government offices and the opportunity to decide and change something and constantly look back at the local right-wing and unionists, then at international partners. First of all, of course, to Bucharest. Romania, by the way, for its part, continues to actively push the “younger Basarabian brother” to abandon its own Moldovan identity whose one of the foundations has always been the language. Let me remind you about what I wrote six months ago: the Moldovan language is no younger than Romanian, has ancient literary traditions, monuments in the Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet dated back to the early Middle Ages. Our language developed within the framework of the Moldavian principality and the Basarabian province of the Russian Empire, and all that according to the original traditions, without numerous impurities and borrowings, as is the case of the after Prut neighbors. Despite this, the Moldovan politicians do not dare objecting to Bucharest, which freely carries out the Romanization of our country. After all, it is at the behest of the neighbors, as it is believed, that the Constitutional Court of Moldova adopted a decision that has no analogues in the world, stating that the Declaration of Independence of the Republic of Moldova has priority over the Constitution, which means that the state language should be called Romanian. Even after the change of regime, no one has resisted the influence of Bucharest on the language issue. The attack of the Romanian Academy of Sciences on the Moldovan language, carried out this year, remained unanswered. Romanian academics were alarmed by “new attempts to introduce into official use in the Republic of Moldova the nonexistent concept of “Moldovan language”, calling it “a product of Soviet propaganda and ideological manipulation”. It is characteristic that these not at all friendly statements were followed by a significant silence from both the authorities and the opposition. But in addition to language, there are also unionist ideas, which are also actively implanted in society no one is going to fight with. Recently, the president was once again indignant at the activities of the parties that actually act in favor of the Moldovan statehood elimination. Nevertheless, for some reason, no one prohibits them to officially register as political parties, go to elections, organize political actions in cities and regions of the country - all this is being done having no legal consequences as it would have occurred within any self-respectful state. As a result, while everyone is talking about language importance, it is gradually dying off as an unnecessary rudiment in the new Moldovan (is it?) State. All these years, it was consistently suppressed, not without Romania helping in, exchanging native history and language for political points and personal pockets that the "European integration" process helped filling. Some people think that the language issue does not really matter today. However, history suggests otherwise. It was a rough and thoughtless approach to such an important and delicate issue and namely this approach became one of the main reasons that brought the left bank to upraising; the conflict has not yet been resolved. Now, knocking out one of its fundamental pillars from under the Moldovan statehood and identity, we risk losing both in the very near future. However, as you can see today, the Moldovan political elite does not care about.