35 Years Since the Independence of the Republic of Moldova
The fall of communism in 1989 marked the collapse of a dividing line established in 1945 among the UN nations that had defeated Germany in World War II.
Steliu Lambru, 17.09.2026, 14:00
The fall of communism in 1989 marked the collapse of a dividing line established in 1945 among the UN (United Nations) nations that had defeated Germany in World War II. The two political and economic models represented by the U.S. and the Soviet Union, liberal democracy and the market economy versus communist dictatorship and the state-controlled economy, stood face to face. After 44 years of tensions and attempts at détente, in 1989, the Soviet model would collapse under the weight of the failure of its own ideas and practices. During 1989, seven countries in Central and Eastern Europe, plus Yugoslavia, returned to the normalcy that had existed before 1945. The fall of the communist regime in Central and Eastern Europe in 1989 reverberated throughout the Soviet sphere two years later, in 1991, a process that historians and political scientists have termed “the disintegration of the Soviet Union.” That year, the 16 republics that made up the Soviet Union declared their independence, including the Republic of Moldova, the eastern part of historic Moldova between the Prut and Dniester rivers.
The Republic of Moldova’s statehood began in December 1917–January 1918, when the legislative assembly voted for autonomy and then independence from Bolshevik Russia, in the name of the principle of national self-determination promoted by Lenin. The core of what would become today’s Republic of Moldova was the Democratic Republic of Moldova, or Bessarabia—an entity separated from historic Moldova and annexed by Russia in 1812 following the Russo-Ottoman War. Throughout the 19th century, Bessarabia remained an integral albeit peripheral part of the Russian Empire until the tumultuous year of 1917. In March 1918, Bessarabia united with the Kingdom of Romania and remained part of it for 22 years, until 1940. In June 1940, following two Soviet ultimatums, Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina were ceded, only to be reclaimed a year later, in June 1941.
On August 23, 1944, when Romania withdrew from its alliance with the Axis powers, a period of Soviet domination lasting nearly half a century began in what came to be known as the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic. Between 1944 and 1991, Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina were subjected to an extremely harsh process of Sovietization and Russification, which, in the 1940s and 1950s, entailed the repression of the Romanian elites, deportations of the Romanian population, and cultural bans.
However, after Stalin’s death, new generations of intellectuals, specifically writers, began, tentatively, to demand their rights, as noted by Andrei Cușco, a professor in the Faculty of History at the State University of Chișinău: “This refers to the period immediately following the Khrushchev Thaw. Beginning with this period, we can speak of the emergence of spaces of relative autonomy, both institutional and personal, for certain representatives of intellectual circles in the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic. These spaces emerged as the dynamics of the regime shifted, and the overt and rather harsh forms of repression that had characterized the Stalinist period were replaced by much less defined forms. This represents a continuum of forms of pressure and collaboration, or, rather, of resistance and opposition.”
The cultural renaissance in Bessarabia, which would shape the generation that would proclaim independence in 1991, emerged in the mid-1960s following a decisive event. Andrei Cușco is at the microphone with details: “The turning point for the institution was the Third Congress of Moldovan Writers, held in 1965. It marked a clear evolution and a shift in the balance of power within the Writers’ Union. This congress, which took place during the early years of the Brezhnev era, is generally considered a high point in the anti-regime opposition coming from the local intelligentsia. It marked, in a sense, the definitive establishment of the writers whom we have called the 1960s generation or the ‘sixties generation’. These writers were the first to write their works in standard Romanian. Beginning in 1957, the so-called “Moldovan” language had become standard Romanian written in the Cyrillic alphabet; this was the last linguistic reform in the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic. The quality of these writers’ literary output was clearly superior to that of most of their predecessors and was in line with the trends toward liberalization that were then visible throughout the Soviet Union. I would like to mention here a few representatives of this generation: Grigore Vieru, Ion Druță, Aureliu Busuioc, Pavel Boțu, and others. This Third Congress of the Writers’ Union was the first clear manifestation of a nationally conscious agenda and the first event of its kind held in Romanian in the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic after World War II.”
In August 1991, through its Declaration of Independence, the Republic of Moldova broke away, for the second time in the 20th century, from the Russian and Soviet states. What followed was a 35-year period of winding searches, of positioning and repositioning in relation to collective identities, the Soviet legacy, and the reconstruction of the state and society. The Republic of Moldova, depending in part on the actions of actors on the world stage, had to choose between development models proposed by the Eurasian and European spheres. (LS)
