Republica Moldova, îNtre România Si Rusia 1989-2009

Dorin Cimpoesu. Republica Moldova, intre România si Rusia 1989-2009. Chisinau: Casa Limbii Romane Nichita Stanescu, 2010. 428 pp. Introduction. Author's note. Appendix. Bibliography. Summaries in English, 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 in Moldova not only go against Western interests but also against those of Romania. While Romania is interested in the ethnic and political identity of Moldova, formerly known as Bessarabia, Russia - and, by geopolitical extension, Ukraine - is interested in the preservation of a separate identity and language, both of which were constructed in the 1920s and 1930s, when the Piedmont principle was widely applied by the Soviets.Based on the author's doctoral thesis, the monograph Republic of Moldova Between Romania and Russia, 1989-2009, is a well- written account of events in one of the weakest independent states of the former Union, as Mihai Retegan notes in his introduction (p. 1 1). Although the book focuses on recent Moldo van history, Romania's and Russia's (and, to some extent, Ukraine's) involvement in Moldovan politics is persuasively discussed and coherently analyzed. Cimpoesu is to be commended for drawing upon his expertise as a staff member of Romania's diplomatic mission in Moldova, 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 to Moldova's statehood and national identity. The author points out the differences between the Romanian and Russian approaches to the existence and functionality of the Moldovan 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 the main 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). …

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