The Debate between Mihail Kogălniceanu and Petrache Roset-Bălănescu Concerning the Future of Emancipated Roma in Moldavia (1855–1856)

This article explores a decisive moment in public debates that surrounded the emancipation of enslaved Roma in the Principality of Moldavia. In December 1855, Mihail Kogălniceanu, a prominent leader of the local “forty-eighter” liberals and proponent of immediate abolition, engaged in a lengthy epistolary exchange with Petrache Roset-Bălănescu, a wealthy conservative nobleman favoring a more gradualist approach to the emancipation of enslaved Roma. This exchange, published shortly afterwards in the pages of the Moldavian newspaper Steaua Dunării, touched upon some key economic and social aspects of the process and so helped steer the public debate from a short-termed legalist and administrative perspective towards a more long-term social one, and in the process, problematized the scope and ramifications of the emancipation program in Moldavia. In so doing, both debaters endeavored to provide practical answers to the complex questions associated with Roma’s transition from enslavement to freedom and from coerced to indentured labor.