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Between Empires and Europe: The Tragic Fate of Moldova

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2024

Wanda Dressler
Wanda Dressler*
Affiliation:
LADYSS/CNRS/Paris X Nanterre
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Abstract

This article is the story of the partition of Moldova into two republics after the short war of the Dniestr in 1992. It is for the most part a narrative drawing on field notes gathered in June 1993 from witnesses and actors in the drama. Its consequences have relegated Moldova, a flourishing soviet republic well known for its high-quality wines and its specialized industrial products within a large military-industrial complex, to the rank of one of the poorest post-soviet entities, struggling with terrible problems of survival. Numbers of its inhabitants have been thrown into every kind of trafficking (drugs, prostitution, illegal work). This story and its commentary aim to reveal the exacerbation of tensions that occurred between the end of perestroïka and the breakup of the USSR - a period of confused loyalties, inter-ethnic and nationalist crisis, and difficult negotiations between the great powers over sharing out zones of influence.

Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 53 , Issue 2 , May 2006 , pp. 29 - 49
Copyright
Copyright © ICPHS 2006

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References

Bibliographical

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