The Moldovans : Romania, Russia, and the politics of culture / Charles King.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

King, Charles, 1967-

Series:

Studies of nationalities

Hoover Institution Press publication ; 472.

Hoover Institution Press publication ; no. 472

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Moldova--History.

Moldova.

History.

Physical Description:

xxix, 303 pages : illustrations, maps ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

Stanford, Calif. : Hoover Institution Press, [2000]

Summary:

The first English-language book to present a complete picture of this intriguing east European borderland, The Moldovans illuminates the perennial problems of identity politics and cultural change that the country has endured. Throughout the past two centuries, Moldova was the object of a variety of culture-building efforts from Russian, Romanian, and Soviet influences before emerging as an independent state in 1991. The author highlights the political uses of culture--the ways in which language, history, and identity can be manipulated by political elites--and examines why some attempts to mold idnetity succeed where others fail. He also reveals why, in the case of Moldova, a project of identity construction succeeded in creating a state but failed to make an independent nation.

Contents:

Introduction: The Physical Setting xxvii

1 Contested Territories, Contentious Identities 1

Part 1 Bessarabia Between Romania and Russia

2 From Principality to Province 11

3 Greater Romania and the Bessarabian Question 36

4 Forging a Soviet Moldovan Nation 63

Part 2 Moldova as a Soviet Republic

5 A Stipulated Nation 91

6 Language and Ethnic Mobilization under Perestroika 120

Part 3 Independence and Conflict

7 Politics, Identity, and Reform after the Soviet Union 145

8 The Multiethnic Republic 168

9 The Transnistrian Conundrum 178

10 The Gagauz 209

11 A Negotiable Nationalism 224.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 275-294) and index.

ISBN:

0817997911

081799792X

OCLC:

41981986