The Transdniestrian Moldovan Republic became a member of the club of unrecognized states in the beginning of the 1990s. The declaration of sovereignty, the military conflict with Moldova and the brotherly help of Russia preceded all this. However, the main part in the Moldova-Transdniestrian conflict played not the ethnical factor, but the fear of approaching changes and desire to preserve the status quo in any way. The very same reasons became fundamental for the choice of Crimea and Donbass in spring of 2014.
The Transdniestrian story of the beginning of the 1990s resembles the Abkhazian and Crimean scenarios: the local elites wanted not only to preserve their place under the sun but even to improve their status up to the Union republic. However, the uniqueness of the situation is that the Soviet Moldavia was made up by uniting the Transdniestrian Moldovan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (the TMASSR), which used to be part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic till 1940, with Bessarabia annexed from Rumania in result of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. It was not a coincidence that against the background of the perestroika the nationalistic forces of Moldavia started to talk about joining Rumania in order to amend the historical injustice
Linguistic mobilization
The language issue became the crucial factor in the fight of Transdniestrians for independence. On August 31, 1989 (two years prior to the USSR collapse), the “Law on languages” that recognized the Moldavian language as the only state language was adopted. Such a development certainly didn’t satisfy inhabitants of Transdniestria, among which there were no more than 40% of Moldavians but there were another 30% of Ukrainians and 25% of Russians. Thereby, most of the Transdniestrians were Russian-speaking and, actually, this fact predetermined the main point of the future conflict. The Transdniestrians organized massive strikes in respond to the preparation and adoption of the language law and this was hardly surprising for the industrial region, whose share in the total GPD of Moldavia was 40%. Russian-speaking Tiraspol demanded to be heard. But while being in the heat of the national euphoria, Kishinev refused to listen. The fly-wheel of the conflict has been started.
Declaration of Independence: who’s the first?
Beginning from the fall of 1989, in big cities Transdniestrians had been holding local referendums on declaration of the Union Republic, which had to become a part of the upgraded light version of the USSR. Approximately 96% of the population supported the idea of local authorities and after the declaration of the sovereignty of yet the Union Moldavia, the Transdniestrian Moldovan Soviet Socialist Republic (the TMSSR) was proclaimed on September 2, 1990. Even Mikhail Gorbachev was scared by the hotheadedness of the Transdniestrian authorities and refused to recognize the TMSSR.
The next events remind the February situation in Crimea and Donbass: the rumors of the approaching groups of the Moldavian police (fear of the groups of Pravy Sector activists that were coming to seize the Crimean and Donbass cities), creation of people’s self-defense groups, appearance of Cossacks and so on. The USSR collapse forced the Transdniestrian conflict: on August 25, 1991, two days before the independence of Moldavia had been declared, the Transdniestrian Moldovan Soviet Social Republic declared its independence (since 1991 the republic changed its name for the Transdniestrian Moldovan Republic – the TMR). Then there was the arrest of the Transdniestrian leader Igor Smirnov by the Moldavian secret services, protests in Tiraspol, the woman’s “railway blockade” – blocking the railway lines and many others. On December 1, 1991, 97.7% of Transdniestrian people supported the idea of independence at the referendum.
“The frozen conflict”
Moldavia didn’t recognize the independence of the TMR and tried to restore own influence in the region by means of the law enforcement agencies but in respond faced with the armed resistance of the Transdniestrians, who, as opposed to Kishinev, didn’t have problems with weapons just like it was in Abkhazia and Crimea and anywhere else, where the Russian troops were present. The 14th Russian army, which served as a reliable guarantor of the Transdniestrian independence, was accommodated in Transdniestria. With the escalation of the situation, the Russian militaries started to recruit the Transdniestrian militia.
The military activities lasted approximately half a year and were not such cruel as it was in Abkhazia, and although the number of victims wasn’t defined precisely, it was in many times smaller. On July 21, 1992 in Moscow the Moldavian and Russian presidents in presence of the Transdniestrian leader signed a “decree on principles of regulations of the conflict in the Transdniestrian region”. This document de facto pinpointed the uncertain status of the TMR, the future of which had to be decided during the negotiation between Kishinev and Tiraspol. But within the quarter of century, nor by themselves, neither with help of mediators, the parties managed to clear up the definition of the “common state”, where they would have to live, according to the decision that had been made in Moscow. Moldavia was ready to grand the wide autonomy but in frames of the unitary state, but the TMR called for the federative or even confederative organization. But the most important achievement of Moscow became the fact that in case of change of the status of Moldova (for example in case of joining Rumania or accession to NATO membership), the status of Transdniestria could also be changed. In other words, Russia simply preserved the conflict while leaving the possibility to resume it at any comfortable moment.
Forever with Russia
Despite the fact that Moldova has been put in dependence of the change of the status, the TMR didn’t see such dependence for itself and in 2006 another referendum took place in the republic (there were 6 referendums since 1989). The Transdniestrians were asked only 2 questions: do they want to keep the independence of their republic as part of Russia, or lose it joining Moldova. It’s clear that by posing the question in this way, 97.1% supported the independence as part of Russia. By the way, the Crimean authorities outdid their Transdniestrians colleagues since they didn’t give the inhabitants of the peninsula any chance to vote for Ukraine and provided them with the possibility to choose between the mere independence and the independence as part of the Russian Federation.
Since December 2013, the Russian laws started to be applied on the territory of Transdniestria, and in April, being inspired by the events of the “Crimean spring”, the TMR applied to Russia with requests first of accession, then of recognition and received none of these demands for the present moment.
What is common among the Transdniestrian, Crimean and Donbass scenarios?
First of all, it is the linguistic factor that was crucial, when the protesting movement in Transdniestria was formed, and acted as a trigger device for Crimea and Donbass, where the patience of the Russian-speaking population was exhausted due to the repeal of the “Law on the principles of state language policy” by the Verkhovna Rada on February 2014. But no one cared that neither the interim president Turchinov, nor the president Poroshenko signed the parliament decision about repeal.
Secondly, it is the very same Russian factor, starting from the military presence in Transdniestria and Crimea and finishing by the de-facto military invasion in Donbass.
But the most important uniting factor is the Soviet mentality – the fear of changes and desire to preserve a little, even though hopelessly outdated, but own world. And if it is still possible to understand the Transdniestrians: they were choosing the Soviet mentality, when everything around them was falling apart and they were afraid to wake up one day in a state united with Romanians, than it is a lot harder to understand Crimeans and Donbass people. It is possible to speak about the legal invalidity of the “referendums” held at the barrel, invalidity of the Kiev’s policy, power of the Russian propaganda, but it is a fact that there are a lot of people, who feel nostalgic for the USSR, in these regions. Otherwise, the Lenin monuments would have been disassembled long time ago, and people would stop recalling ice-cream for 20 kopecks.
The Romanian factor that scared the Transdniestrians and, actually, the status of the unrecognized state, which Russia (unlike Abkhazia and Ossetia, which were already recognized by it) is not going to change for the TMR, are the most important factor among other differences. By the way, the “DNR” and the “LNR” have all the chances to repeat just the Transdniestrian choice of solving the problem: to stay in Ukraine de-jure, but keep the possibility to influence on foreign-policy decisions of Kiev (accession to the EU and the NATO).
Nevertheless, today the TMR is a preserved example of the Soviet Union, in which, however, the local elite does not live in the soviet way, owning “plants and steamships”. It is obvious that Crimea, where Aksenov&Company privatize the Ukrainian property in the grab-what-you-can way while offering the plebs to enjoy the view of the new illumination of the world’s proletariat leader in the center square of the Crimean capital, is going the very same way now. Sooner or later the very same fate will be waiting for the “DNR” and the “LNR”, if the region does not return to Ukraine not only de-jure but also de-facto.
