Desecretized document reveals former Communist Government's plans to "fight against Romanianism" in Moldova

The current Government has initiated a campaign to publish secret policy documents released by the former Communist Government (2001-2009). In the process, media outlets have published documents that indicated, for example, that the Communists had expelled students and dismissed college faculty for participating in the anti-Communist April 2009 protests.

Tomorrow's Timpul publishes another document that shows deputy Prime Minister Victor Stepaniuc's frustrations about the fact that a large number of high school teachers refused to teach Government-mandated textbooks that challenged the idea that Moldova is inhabited by Romanians. The deputy premier also complains that about 70 percent of college faculty in Moldova is pro-Romanian.

Mr. Stepaniuc mentions at the end of the document that the Government needs to call a forum of historians and experts with whom to discuss ways of "fighting Romanianism in Moldovan society." By "Romanianism," Mr. Stepaniuc is referring to anything suggesting a commonality between Romania and Moldova - ethnically, linguistically, or historically.

Victor Stepaniuc is a leading proponent of a school of thought called "Moldovenism," which argues that the Republic of Moldova's statehood is 650 years old, that Moldova should have close historical, political, and cultural ties with Russia, and that the ethnicity of the majority population in Moldova is "Moldovan" instead of Romanian. Critics of this school of thought say that Mr. Stepaniuc supports Stalinist notions of ethnicity and a Soviet interpretation of history that praises Russia and criticizes Romania and the West in general.

The Party of Communists (PC) fostered very close ties with the Moldovenists during their rule (2001-2009), although there seems to have been a recent falling out. Mr. Stepaniuc recently left the PC to join the Moldova Unita [United Moldova] Party, a pro-Russian left-wing group that proposes to challenge the PC's supremacy on the left.

Another Moldovenist historian - Sergiu Nazaria - has been a quite vocal critic of the Communists after initially being their ally.