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Moldova Celebrates National Language Day
(2011-08-31)
Last updated: 2011-09-01 13:26 EET Print
For the past 22 years, the Republic of Moldova has been celebrating the National Language Day on August 31st. The celebration itself is a paradox, since under the Moldovan Constitution, the state language is the Moldovan dialect. The national awakening of Moldova saw its advent in the late 80s and is allegedly seen as the sole revolution started on behalf of a mother tongue. The republic was founded over part of Romania’s eastern territories conceded to the Soviets in 1940. Its first official name sanctioned by the Soviet Union was The Moldovan Republic. Concepts such as the Moldovan people and the Moldovan language, which distinguished itself from the Romanian language and used the Cyrillic alphabet, were supposed to account for the territorial seizure. However, no knowledgeable linguist, whether Romanian, Western European or Russian, has ever attested to the existence of the pseudo dialect forged by Kremlin officials. Consequently, against the backdrop of reform promoted by former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, hundreds of Moldovans gathered in Chisinau on August 31st 1989 and forced Parliament to proclaim the Romanian language as the state language of Moldova. The overarching movement was all the more turbulent as the failing communist dictatorship in Romania at the time provided no support for the Romanian ethnics in the Soviet Union. After Moldova declared its independence in 1991, Romanian became the official language, while other Romanian symbols, the national anthem “Awaken, Romanians!” and the national flag of Romania, blue, yellow and red, won their official recognition. In 1994, however, the Constitution adopted by the newly-formed pro-Russian agrarian Parliament, reverted to the denomination of “Moldovan” during the Soviet era. On Tuesday, several hundreds of young Moldovans protested in Chisinau against maintaining this article of the Moldovan Constitution. One of the leaders behind the protest, Dorin Geamba, told one of our correspondents: “Scientifically speaking, the right thing to say is that the language we speak is the Romanian language, not the Moldovan language. The Moldovan language is a misconception projected by the agrarian government in 1994, particularly aimed at annihilating the Romanian society and marginalizing anyone who assumed the Romanian identity”. Inspired by the movement in Chisinau this year, 166 Romanian MPs have submitted a draft law to Parliament, asking for August 31st to be proclaimed the National Language Day. Both home authorities and diplomatic offices would observe the official holiday by staging cultural, educational and artistic festivities with an evocative or scientific purpose. According to its initiators, the draft law is a direct homage paid to the exemplary courage displayed by the Moldovan people in 1989.

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