Zwischen Arktis Adria und Armenien

220 Sovieto-Rossica
with the eye of the high-flying eagle”, thus states a textbook published in 1997 in
Tiraspol’, “Transnistria – this thin strip of land along the grey-haired river Dniester –
resembles a Skythian arc.” 25 With reference to Aleksandr A. Blok’s famous poem
“The Skythians” (Skify), TMR identity management portrays Transnistria as a Slavic
bullwark at the crossroads of Europe and Asia. For example, a map on the TMR’s
geopolitical position in the official English-language Atlas of the Dniester Moldavian
Republic represents the territory of the TMR as being much more compact than
the geodetic facts suggest, as well as being located in a geopolitically crucial central
position between East and West. In doing so, this alleged ‘centrality’ of the TMR
relates to two constellations: First, the TMR is portrayed as being located right in the
middle between the ‘brotherly states’ of Belarus’ and the Russian Federation on the
one side and the equally ‘brotherly’ – since Christian-Orthodox – Balkan countries
of Bulgaria, Macedonia and Serbia on the other. Second, it is depicted as being encircled
by the hostile NATO members Poland, Hungary, Greece and Turkey. 26 Moldova,
which according to TMR propaganda is a hotbed of “Chişinău-style Nazism” and a
stomping ground of “Romanian cannibals”, 27 as well as the Ukraine – in Tiraspol’s
perception notoriously unreliable with regard to Christian-Orthodox and eastern Slav
solidarity 28 – are perceived as two blocs of the same anti-Russian vice. However, in
the perception of the TMR leadership Transnistria is of primary geostrategic importance
for Moscow. In this context, the Kaliningrad parallel is frequently invoked by
TMR officials, and this not only in military terms but also in terms of international
status: The TMR – thus the message – should be turned into a second Kaliningrad
Oblast’, i. e. it should become a subject of the Russian Federation. The self-stylization
of the TMR as “a tiny bit of the Great Russian state”, as described by Smirnov
25 N. V. Babilunga and B. G. Bomeško, Stranicy rodnoj istorii. Učebnoe posobie po istorii dlj 5 klassa
srednej školy (Tiraspol’, 1997), inside cover. For the context, see also Stefan Troebst, “Wie ein
skythischer Bogen. Transnistrien als slawisches Bollwerk zwischen dem Orient und Europa”, Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung, 7 October 2002, 8, and on mental mapping in Eastern Europe in general,
Id., “‘Intermarium’ und ‘Vermählung mit dem Meer’: Kognitive Karten und Geschichtspolitik in Ostmitteleuropa”,
28(3) Geschichte und Gesellschaft (2002), 435–469.
26 See the map “Geopolitical Position” in Dniester Moldavian Republic (ed.), Atlas . . . , 7.
27 For the term kišinevskij nacizm see Volkova, Lider, Introduction, and for the slander rumynskie ljudoedy
a photograph dated June 1992 showing Transnistrian volunteers on a truck whose tailboard
carries the graffiti “Death to the Romanian cannibals!” (Smert’ rumynskim liudoedam!) in a brochure
by Valerij Kruglikov and N. Vorob’eva, Bendery. Leto-92. Vojina (Fotoal’bom) (Bendery, 1995), 40.
28 The TMR’s relationship with the neighboring Ukraine is ambivalent: On the one hand, in 1995
TMR diplomacy succeeded in securing Kiev’s participation as a co-mediator in the conflict between
Tiraspol’ and Chişinău – along with the Russian Federation and the OSCE – and in having Ukrainian
blue helmet troops deployed in order to safeguard, together with Russian, Moldovan and Transnistrian
troops, the Security Zone established after the armed clash over Bendery in July 1992 along
the Dniester. On the other hand, Smirnov’s personal relationship to the eastern neighbor has been
seriously strained by the fact that in September 1991 he was kidnapped in Kiev by the Moldovan
secret service and brought to Chişinău – with the knowledge and obviously also the consent of the
Ukrainian authorities. After several weeks in jail he was released. See Volkova, Lider, chapter V.