Newsgroups: talk.politics.soviet
Subject: Re: The revival of the "Moldavian" language
From: verbit@coolidge.harvard.edu (Mikhail S. Verbitsky)
Date: 31 Aug 92 23:41:32 EDT
Organization: Sozialistische Patienten Kollektiv

In article <1992Aug31.155207.1265@enea.se> sommar@enea.se (Erland Sommarskog) writes:
>In today's RFE/RL report we find:
>)"DNIESTER REPUBLIC" TO REIMPOSE RUSSIAN SCRIPT ON "MOLDOVAN
>)LANGUAGE." A draft "law on languages," currently before the
>)"Dniester Republic Supreme Soviet," would reimpose the Russian
>)alphabet for the "Moldovan language" (i.e.  Romanian) in schools
>)there, Radio Rossii reported on 24 August.  Moldovan schools in
>)that area switched to the Latin script following its
>)reinstatement in Moldova in 1989, and have since resisted the
>)"Dniester" authorities' orders to return the "Moldovan language"
>)to the Russian alphabet.  The proposed measure would give the
>)"Dniester" Russian authorities a pseudo-legal basis for enforcing
>)compliance.  (Vladimir Socor, RFE/RL Inc.)
>
>Well, those Transdniestr guys never looked like any nice guys to me,
>rather old-timers who are fighting to preserve their power. OK,
>Vinzyuk we're know you're sensitive about language laws, can we
>hear you scream "fascism" once more? Or is it OK when Russians are
>playing such games?

Dear Erland, this is not as simple as it seems. I have spoken
with one fellow mathematician from Kishinev (sorry for mistranscription).
He has no bias towards Russians, and, even if I have not
asked him about his ethnicity, I suppose that he is,
at least partially, Roumanian (Moldavan) (his name is quite typical :).
He told me that the whole affair with changing of scripts
was just a idiotic political company. First, historically (as he told and
as I recall from vague memories of history) Moldavans
(east Roumanians) used Cyrillic alphabeth. He told me
they did it even before Roumanians obtained one (I am not sure
in this, but I recall that they used Cyrillic in 18th century).
This is not a great wonder, since they are Orthodox
Christians, and, as Serbs and Russians, were taught Christianity
by Greeks who did not use Latin script. By linguistic
reasons, anyway, Latin script is a lot better for
Roumaninas who are belonging to Roman language group,
so the usage of Latin in West Roumania was predominant.

When the script in Moldova was changed, nobody could use it well;
all official documents were written with mistakes in
*every sentence*. Worse, the secretary with knowledge
of Latin typewriter was paid more than his boss, since
there were almost nobody able to type Latin. There were not
enough typograph paraphernalia and typewriters; generally,
the whole change of alphabeths was a company of self-promoting
of greedy politicians. I am almost sure he is right,
because in Russia the nationally active politicians
(especially writers, clergy and artists) could do any idiocy
to promote themselves and their nationalistic ideas.
I mean, I could easily imagine the same change of script
misadventure in Russia. For example, there are lot
of nationalists who use pre-Revolution alphabeth
for Russian language (it was different from current one).
If they came to a power (quite probably that they will),
they will surely change the script for Russian
language as well. Will you blame people who will
change it back as facsists? I am sure you will not.

There are lot of East roumanians (Moldavans) who are
not content with the change of script. Of course,
eventually it should be changed, they say, but
now there are lot of more important things.

What I wrote *does not* mean that Dniestr goverment is
not facsist. I don't know if it is, but what Erland
wrote does not show anything: even Dnestr Moldavans
could be tired of nonsence with changing alphabeths.

I am sure that if Moldavan in Transdnestria are
not content with proposed measure and it will be
enforced, this enforcement is more facsistic than
everything Balts ever did; still, we have not
read yet anything which indicated that. Personally,
I am sure that, as bad as Dnestr authorities are,
they will not enforce such a measure without Moldavan's
content. Now, they have support from Dnestr
Moldavans; why should they need to get rid of it?
They may be bad, but they are not nationalistic
(as far as I know), as Snegur's supporters are.

Misha.
Newsgroups: talk.politics.soviet