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Moldova: Difference between revisions
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Sandwiched in between Romania and Ukraine, suffering from a pretty bad identity crisis and being officially named the poorest country in Europe... yeah, suffice to say, the Republic of Moldova has it a bit rough.
First of all, to get a bit of etymology confusion out of the way: "Moldova" is the generic Romanian term for the historical region that was formerly occupied by the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Moldavia Principality of Moldova] between 1346-1859. For the sake of avoiding confusion, English material differentiates between the ''historical region'', which is referred to by the anglicized "Moldavia", and the ''modern region of Romania and country', which are referred to as "Moldova". [[
== History ==
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The atmosphere after the collapse of the USSR was filled with some optimism that the newly-proclaimed Republic of Moldova (well, it should more accurately be Bessarabia, but whatever) would reunite with Romania and finally rebuild the old Greater Romania. This scared the inhabitants of the region beyond the Dniester River, Transnistria, who were majority Russians and Ukrainians and were terrified of such a union. They themselves declared independence and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_Transnistria a war started in 1992] <ref>Here, Transnistria was backed by Ukraine and Russia, while Moldova was supported by Romania, predictably enough</ref>, which ended in a stalemate and Transnistria's ''de facto'' but unrecognised independence.
This war, combined with popular apathy, caution on behalf of the authorities and Romania's own political problems killed off the possibility of union between Moldova and Romania. Moldova began distancing itself from Romania starting in 1994, changing its national anthem from the Romanian one to another one, adopting a new flag (the Romanian flag with the Moldavian coat of arms) and the national language was changed back to "Moldovan". In response, the Romanian Chamber of Deputies adopted a declaration that basically bitched them out for chickening out on union and said that [[This Is Unforgivable!]]. And then everybody forgot about it. Now, the unionist movement still exists, it's stronger in Romania compared to Moldova, but most people on either side don't care very much about it. It doesn't help that a 2008 poll showed 61% of Moldovans rejecting union with Romania. Actually, it's probably for the best that union never happened - Moldova's the poorest country in Europe (despite its steady annual growth in the 2000s) and got ''really'' screwed by the transition to capitalism, so if a union would've taken place it would've been like what happened to Germany, except with both countries having practically Third World economies.
Moldova's been struggling ever since with what exactly is its national identity (Romanian? Moldovan? Something in between? [[Take a Third Option]]?) and who it should look forward to (Europe? Russia?). It's hoping to join the [[European Union]], but that probably won't happen for a while.
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