Nation-Building and Contested Identities: Romanian & Hungarian ...

CRISTINA PETRESCUa voice to those from below, I analyze the combination between the profoundtransformations in administrative organization and educationalpolicy undertaken by the Romanian modernizing state, and thecomplete stagnation in the economy and in the everyday life of the peasantpopulation, which, in my view, prevented the national integration ofthe Bessarabians.The stories told by a group of Bessarabians coming from several villagesof Bãlþi county, who, it should be noted, chose to come to Romaniainstead of living under the Soviet regime, 9 seems to suggest that theirnative region was the only province acquired after World War I where theRomanian central authorities did not succeed in integrating their own coethnics,among whom some even felt nostalgia for the Tsarist period. 10Although citizens of Greater Romania, a large majority of Bessarabiansdid not even begin to consider themselves part of the Romanian nation,going beyond their allegiance to regional and local ties. 11 In short, as theseoral history interviews reveal, during the interwar period, the Romanianhomogenizing state failed in its attempt to transform the peasants ofBessarabia into Romanians.The Shortest History Away from the Historical Motherland,but the Longest (Re)unification ProcessAny attempt aiming at understanding the peculiarities of the nation-buildingprocess in Bessarabia must begin by considering the historical backgroundand the intricate circumstances in which the 1918 union wasaccomplished. From all the provinces of Greater Romania, Bessarabiahad the shortest history as a region apart, since it was created only in 1812,following the Turkish-Russian war that ended with the Peace Treaty ofBucharest. The treaty stipulated the annexation of the eastern part of historicalMoldova, lying between the rivers Prut and Dnestr, by the RussianEmpire. 12 Until then, as it is known from the Descriptio Moldaviae ofDimitrie Cantemir, the traditional regional partition of Moldova wasbetween the northern (Þara de Sus) and the southern parts (Þara de Jos). 13In other words, the west-east division of Moldova did not have historicalroots older than the moment when, according to a diplomatic agreement,its eastern part, since then known as Bessarabia, exited the Turkish“sphere of influence” to enter into the Russian one. Bessarabia remainedpart of the Russian Empire until its collapse, 14 while the rest of Moldovajoined neighboring Wallachia in 1859, creating the modern Romanianstate through a Risorgimento type of national movement. 15 In this timespan, Bessarabia missed not only the reforms aimed at transforming thetwo united principalities into a modern state, but also the parallel process154