Canadian Slavonic Papers

Republica Moldova, între România şi Rusia 1989–2009 by Dorin Cimpoeşu

Review by: Eduard Baidaus
Canadian Slavonic Papers / Revue Canadienne des Slavistes, Vol. 53, No. 1 (March 2011), pp.
137-139
Published by: Canadian Association of Slavists
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25822319 .
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Book Reviews 137

Bren's analysis reveals the ingeniousness behind the state's efforts to solve the
difficult question of how to encourage conformity in the wake of political unrest. The
Husak regime tried to use television as a subtle mechanism of subjugation, performing and

promoting appropriate socialist role models and institutions as a weekly practice of mass
entertainment. Augmenting this fresh look at state socialist media, Bren provides an
excellent summary of the diversity of dissent in 1970s Prague, from the anti-politics of
Havel and his critics Mandler and Benda, to the conflict-mongering of Rezek. The paper
based samizdatofkeyCharter77 figureshowever is countered
with therelentlessnightly
coverage of a state televised Anti-Charter rally, showing how difficult was the dissident
challenge towin hearts and minds. But themedia sector was not necessarily an easy space
inwhich partyloyaltyand individualcreativitycould collaborateas Bren also providesthe
reader with special backstage access to themanoeuvrings and the professional and political
fates of writers and producers, such as Jaroslav Dietl, who were ultimately responsible for

blending artistic inspiration

with complacency throughthemechanism of totalitarian
entertainment.
Her astute historical narrative, which draws on a wide range of sources including party
documents, television industry archives and personal interviews, reminds us of how the
regime left almost nothing to chance, from the promotion of the double female gender role
of working mother to the selection of a German-sounding name for an antagonist on the

widely-popular Major Zeman television detective series, or the shelving of the script for the
final episode of that series. Bren's book tells an important story of how normalization, in
addition to purges and official double-speak, endured as a public experience during late
communism. It is a unique study thatwill interest not only students and scholars who focus
on the period and the region, but also social scientists and historians grappling with more
current processes and experiences of the society, politics and media of late capitalism in the
West.

Edward Snajdr,JohnJayCollege, CityUniversityofNew York

Dorin Cimpoesu. Republica Moldova, intreRomania si Rusia 1989-2009. Chi?inau:

Casa Limbii Romane Nichita Stdnescu, 2010. 428 pp. Introduction. Author's note.

Appendix. Bibliography. Summaries inEnglish, German, and Russian. MDL 75.00, paper.

The political history of the former Soviet republics continues to attract scholarly attention.
Two decades after the breakup of the USSR, Russia's foreign strategy toward the "near
abroad" illustrates the Kremlin's desire to recover its lost prestige as a superpower and that
of regional policy maker. Moldova is the only post-Soviet country that is the object of
camouflaged rivalry between Moscow and a second party, i.e., Bucharest. Unlike in the rest
of the post-Soviet space, Russia's attempts to restore its influence inMoldova not only go

against Western interests but also against those of Romania. While Romania is interested in
the "Romanian" identity of Moldova,
ethnic and political formerly known as Bessarabia,
Russia?and, by geopolitical extension, Ukraine?is interested in the preservation of a

separate "Moldovan" identity and language, both of which were constructed in the 1920s
and 1930s,when the"Piedmontprinciple"was widely applied by theSoviets.
Based on the author's
doctoral thesis, themonograph Republic ofMoldova Between
Romania and Russia,
1989-2009, is a well-written account of events in "one of theweakest

independent states of the former Union," as Mihai Retegan notes in his introduction (p. 11).
Although the book focuses on recent Moldovan history, Romania's and Russia's (and, to

Canadian Slavonic Papers/Revue canadienne des slavistes

Vol. LIII,No. 1,March 2011

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 138 Book Reviews

some extent, Ukraine's) involvement inMoldovan politics is persuasively discussed and

coherently analyzed. Cimpoe?u is to be commended for drawing upon his expertise as a

staffmember of Romania's diplomatic mission inMoldova, where, in addition to carrying
out his official duties, he spent many years conducting research, selecting materials, and

analyzing current events witnessed first-hand.

The monograph is organized into seven chapters preceded by an introduction that
addresses the historical background of Romanian-Russian relations in the context of the
"Bessarabian Question," as well as events in the Moldavian SSR during the period of

perestroika. Chapter 1 gives a detailed analysis of the reasons why Romania (pp. 45-51)
and Russia (pp. 53-54) are not indifferent toMoldova's statehood and national identity.
The author points out the differences between theRomanian and Russian approaches to the
existence and functionality of theMoldovan state. Yet, neither the former nor the latter

recognizes the existence of a dispute over a country that was once both a Romanian

province and a Soviet

republic.
Three major research questions constitute themain focus of the next six chapters. The
first concerns the internal political life of Moldova. The author investigates how its elite

developed post-Soviet governance. To a certain extent, political developments in

Moldova's recent history were similar to those of other ex-Soviet republics. Yet, in spite of
a common nationalistic start in the late 1980s, Moldova's path was unique. Although it
avoided the authoritarian scenarios of Belarus or Turkmenistan, Moldova is the only

country where the Communist Party returned to power as a result of free and democratic
elections (pp. 189-193).
Next, the author turns his attention toMoldova's relations with Romania and examines
the different approaches that the Moldavian political elite adopted toward its western

neighbour. In the early 1990s Chisinau did not challenge the "Romanian" identity of the
country's ethnic majority or object to Bucharest's use of the concept of "two Romanian
states" in its official discourse (pp. 152, 261). The situation changed dramatically after
1994. As theAgrarian Party and, later, the "neo-communists" came to dominate Moldova's

political life, ethnic, cultural, and political values shifted toward Russia (pp. 67, 246).
Cimpoe?u suggests thatRomania's plans forMoldova's "economic and cultural integration

[into Romania] were too ambitious because the country lacked economic capabilities," in
contrast to the case of West Germany (p. 49). Official Romanophobia and the politics of
"Moldovenism," to use Charles King's term, ended when the pro-Western Alliance for

European Integrationreplaced therulingcommunistsin2009 (pp. 257, 342).

The author also fixes his gaze on relations with Russia. After 1991 Moscow assumed
the role of guardian of Moldova's sovereignty and independence. However, this

guardianship seems to function only when these political attributes suit Kremlin's

geopolitical interests. Cimpoe?u's research exposes thewide range of political, economic,

and military levers that Russia has employed in order to control and influence Moldova's

uneasy vacillation between East and West. One of these levers is the "frozen conflict" in
the separatist region of Transnistria, whose leadership enjoys Russian support (pp. 73,353).
Sandwiched between Romania and Ukraine, Moldova has sought more decisive

participationfromUkraine inresolvingthisconflict(pp. 239-242, 296-298). Yet, as the

author points out, Kyiv's actions have has not been "strong enough to discourage the

separatists" and provide more declarative support to Chisinau's efforts to solve the problem

(p. 311). Obviously,Moscow has remainedthekey policymaker in the regionand has

sought to reduce Ukraine's role in the negotiation process (p. 352).
The author used a variety of primary sources and works published by Western and
Romanian scholars, but overlooked Russian and Ukrainian scholarship, which would have

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Book Reviews 139

been an asset to his monograph. Nevertheless, one of the strongest virtues of this study is
the data available to Cimpoe?u from the archive of Romania's foreign ministry. At the
same time, one may agree with Retegan's comment that "the information provided by the
media had to be filtered in order to prevent partisan views, which have nothing in common
with a scholarly
work, fromslippingin" (p. 12).
Overall, Cimpoe?u's book is a stimulating narrative about the inner workings of

political life inMoldova and aboutRomanian and Russian foreignpolicies towardthis

post-Soviet state. As the author states in his conclusions, Moldova involuntarily engages
both countries in theirofficiallyunacknowledged dispute over its destiny.Despite
Bessarabia's transformation into themodern Republic ofMoldova, the country remains a
constant source of tension in this corner of Eastern Europe and, to some extent, in the
Balkans.

Eduard Baidaus, UniversityofAlberta

Wayne Dowler. Russia in 1913. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2010. ix, 351
pp. Illustrations. Bibliography. Index. $35.00, cloth.

Wayne Dowler has taken up one of the central issues in the historiography of late imperial
Russia, the degrees of separation: first, between state and educated society, and second,
between the educated and the narod, or people, on the eve of war. Concentrating on the last
full year before the outbreak of the Great War, he argues that the chasms between these
various socio-political players were not as deep as they continue to appear to be in
textbooks. This does not make him an "optimist," in the Arthur Mendelian sense of the
word that can be used to characterize historians who believed thatRussia was on the path to

westernization, before the war impeded its progress. On the contrary, Dowler rues that too
much historiographyis stuckinparadigmsfromthe 1960s,which shouldhave shiftedfor
reasons of both theory and opened archives. He acknowledges that significant recent
has gone beyond this;one ofhis primaryobjectives is to synthesize
literature much of the
secondary literature for an in-depth look at Russia's last year of peace. Coincidentally,
1913 also marked the tercentenary of the Romanov dynasty, the celebrations of which led
Nicholas II to find comfort in the sixteenth century.

Placing the Russian economy "at the heart of the story" (p. 11), Dowler establishes at
the outset that the leading economic indicators showed dynamic growth that could not but

impact social relations. In his first chapter, he sets the framework by establishing the
contours of economics and demographics, and concludes that a market economy had indeed
taken root in Russia, despite the anti-capitalist discourse that dated back to the first

challenges launched by Europe's Industrial Revolution. This, like all of his chapters, is
filled with useful information; Iwas surprised, for example, to learn that "petty property
holdersmade up the largestportionof urbanpopulations" (p. 22).
The next chapter, on "estates and classes" addresses the politics of the various groups,
and is inmymind the leasthelpful.This iswhereworkersstrike,especiallythewell-known
metalworkers in St. Petersburg, and the peasants adapt to the Stolypin land reforms,

designed to break up the communes and increase personal ownership of farmland. It is

useful to have this information in one place, but I would have appreciated some cultural
views of how groups might have self-identified one aspect of themselves, even as they
interacted more conspicuously across the variety of estates and classes. The following

chapter, on "social integration and civil society," includes a welcome comparative context,

Canadian Slavonic Papers/Revue canadienne des slavistes

Vol. LIII,No. 1,March 2011

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