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PhD in History
At the beginning of August, a discussion – controversial, in our opinion – about place names in Moldova and their translation into Russian appeared in the media and on social networking websites. One of the materials that fuelled this discussion was an article on the news portal NewsMaker, titled “Kishinev or Chisinau? Who Is Right in the Polemic about the Names of Moldova’s Cities?” [“Кишинев или Кишинэу? Кто прав в споре о названиях городов Молдовы?”].
Among other things, the portal writes: “Discussion about the ‘correct’ writing of Moldovan place names in Russian intensified on social networking websites. Reasons for this discussion are the repeated observations of the Broadcasting Coordinating Council (BCC), which requested that programs aired in Russian use the place names established by law, i.e. ‘Chisinau,’ ‘Balti’ and their derivatives. Experts disagree with it and believe that the law cannot change the rules of the Russian language, according to which it is correct to say ‘Kishinev.’”
The first impression of an uninformed reader upon looking through this text – made of several paragraphs and referring to several opinions, but all consonant with the same message – is that currently in Moldova there is an offensive on the Russian language… This impression is amplified by both Facebook users and the NTV Moldova TV station. Thus, there have been several comments with different nuances about Chisinau, from satirical (Mark Tkaciuk’s post) and ironic (Elena Pahomova’s post) to statements that reveal a complete lack of openness to dialogue. They all, however, support the idea that there are attempts in Moldova to ban place names in the Russian language.
Thus, we find that a misstep has been made towards manipulation. In a press release on 23 August 2017, the BCC requested media outlets “to refute the published falsehoods so as to avoid manipulating public opinion in the coverage of sensitive issues, and to abandon in the future the dissemination of untruthful information that undoubtedly hurts the interests of TV viewers in our country.” The media outlets in question did not, however, mention this press release, which confirms their lack of interest in the pluralistic coverage of this issue.
Where did the problem come from?
Reference to an interview with a linguist from Russia and the “argument” that the borrowed form, Chisinau, “does not sound Russian,” have no scientific coverage. Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan, does not sound very Russian, either. Also, the names of other cities from the countries around Russia – Helsinki, Stockholm, Beijing – do not sound Russian at all.
Beyond that, the issue of our polemic comes out of the Soviet era. Since the post-war period, in conditions of lack of official linguistic regulations and of the marginal status of the Romanian language, many place names were distorted, while many localities had several names that were used in parallel, sometimes with significantly different forms.
Decisions of 31 August 1989
On 31 August 1989, the Supreme Soviet of the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (MSSR) adopted two important laws – the law “on the status of state language of MSSR” and the law “on the functioning of languages spoken on the territory of the MSSR.” The first one had a short text and it was supplementing the Constitution with article 70 prime, which contained the following phrase: “The state language of the MSSR is Moldavian. The state language is used in political, economic, social and cultural life, and it functions of the basis of the Latin script.” Thus, the MSSR went in line with the Baltic States and the Caucasian republics, which during the Soviet times had national languages as state languages. At the same time, in 1989, for the first time after 1944, the Romanian language returned to the public sphere on the territory of Bessarabia.
The second law contained a larger set of provisions, of which we shall mention article 24 of “Title VI. Language in names and information.” It stipulated: “Localities and other geographical objectives on the territory of the MSSR shall have a single official name in its Moldavian or, accordingly, Gagauz original language (without translation or adaptation), taking into account the historical traditions of the respective place. The correct writing of the names of localities and other geographical objectives shall be established in special guides. The names of squares, streets, city districts shall be formed in the state language without translation (in localities with Gagauz population - in the Gagauz language), and in villages where the majority of population is Ukrainian, Russian or Bulgarian – in an acceptable language.”
… The law of 31 August 1989 is still valid, as it has not been legally challenged by anyone so far. The attempt of some online publications and netizens to present the legal requirement of using the form “Chisinau” in Russian and in any other language on the territory of Moldova as a pressure on the languages of national minorities is an exaggeration. The use of other forms than Chisinau is in fact a violation of the law.
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The article was published within the Advocacy Campaigns Aimed at Improving Transparency of Media Ownership, Access to Information and promotion of EU values and integration project, implemented by the IJC, which is, in its turn, part of the Moldova Partnerships for Sustainable Civil Society project, implemented by FHI 360.
This article is made possible by the generous support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The content are the responsibility of author and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government.
