From the Russian Empire to the soviet empire: the evolution of the concept of Moldovanism in ethnonational research

Imperial Russian officials used only the term Moldavians and „Moldovan language”, scholars and political leaders trained in the Russian Empire used the term Moldavians and „Moldovan language” and Romanians and the Romanian language as interchangeable terms, even after the October 1917 coup d’état. But the „new” Soviet historiography, on which C. Derjavin’s article is based, manifests from the very beginning total hatred towards the term Romanian and the phrase Romanian language. In the first decade after the revolution of February 1917, the research of ethno-national problems proceeded on the basis of the plans developed still in the Russian Empire, during the first world war. The only specialist who dealt with this problem was L.Berg, others, in fact, did not even exist at that time. The continuation of the Bolsheviks’ promotion of imperial traditions, a policy that was openly manifested regarding Bessarabia, led to the direct involvement of the party and Soviet organs in the issue of determining the ethno-national affiliation and the language spoken by the Romanians in Bessarabia. Although some of the cominternist Soviet political leaders, promoters of the expansion of the „proletarian revolution” stated very clearly that the native inhabitants of Bessarabia and to the left of the Dniester are Romanians and the language they speak is Romanian, this correct position of theirs contradicted the policy national of imperial origin promoted by the USSR. In such a situation, seeking to legitimize the buffer republic created on the left bank of the Dniester - Moldavian SSR, but also the claims on Bessarabia, some authors, non-specialists in the field in which they spoke, but especially the local political leaders, the so-called „autochthonists”, emerging only for political reasons, they reinstated the proletarian theory according to which the Moldavians are a people related to the Romanians, but still different, and the language they speak is the „Moldovan language”, a language spoken by the people, different from the Romanian language.