Bilingual Policy in Moldova

Reform and relapse in bilingual policy in Moldova
Author(s): Matthew H. Ciscel

Source: Comparative Education, Vol. 46, No. 1, Special Issue (39): Language and Education at
the Margins of the European Union: Policies, Practices, Challenges (FEBRUARY 2010), pp.
13-28
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Comparative Education |"' RoutledQ6
Vol. 46, NO. 1, February 2010, 13-28 |' Tay
Reform and relapse in bilingual policy in Mol

Matthew H. Ciscel*
Department of English, Central Connecticut State University, New Britain, CT, USA
In the Republic of Moldova, language education policy has shifted since

independence from an uneven Soviet policy, in which minority Russian
dominated, towards somewhat more equitable European norms. Although many
reforms in language education have been beneficial in producing a more balanced
bilingualism, official policy has at times tended towards a relapse into Soviet-style
policies. This paper examines key political and institutional facts related to this
dialectic between reform and relapse in language education policy. It concludes
that, while early reforms have been largely successful, they have been weakened
by challenges from the central government and reversals in the breakaway region
of Transnistria. Ultimately, the success of policies that support bilingualism in
Moldova depends critically on improvements in political stability, a unified
national identity, and the economy.
Introduction
Outside the former Yugoslavia, the Republic of Moldova is possibly the most unstable
and culturally complex among the new states of Europe to emerge from authoritarian
Communism. The country includes a Romanian-speaking majority (many of whom
eschew the Romanian label in favour of Moldovan), a sizeable urban minority of
Russian speakers, a small breakaway region that still operates on the Soviet model,
and a severely impoverished, largely agricultural economy. Within this context,
language education policy since independence in 1991 has shifted in fits and starts
from the official bilingualism and de facto Russification of Soviet policy towards the
emerging international and European norms for recognising and protecting diversity.
To illustrate the complexity of these changes, this paper will focus on two processes:
first, the reform of language policy and educational practice started and maintained by
self-identified Romanians in government and educational institutions; and second, the
counter-reform of those in government who call themselves Moldovan and hearken
back to the Soviet status quo.
The nominally Communist government that was democratically elected in 2001 and
again in 2005 has pursued a complex set of policies that affect language education prac-
tices, from attempts to raise Russian to equal official status with Moldovan/Romanian
to intimidation of nationalistic Romanian news media. At the same time, the govern-
ment has increasingly pursued a policy of eventual integration into the European
Union. Meanwhile, in the breakaway region of Transnistria, forced school closings and
intimidation of parents in 2004 were resolved into an uneasy compromise on the status
of Romanian-medium schools in the region. The major theme that emerges is that elite
*Email: ciscelm@ccsu.edu
ISSN 0305-0068 print/ISSN 1360-0486 online

©2010 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/03050060903538590
http://www.informaworld.com
14 M.H. Ciscel
policy and positioning on language policy still falls short of trends

towards greater respect for diversity (see Wright 2004, on elites and lang
Although many reforms in language education have been beneficial
more balanced bilingualism between Romanian and Russian in Mold
policy has at times tended towards a relapse into Soviet-era minority rul
The context of Moldovan reforms
In order to understand the current state of language education policy and practice in
Moldova, one must understand how this country compares to its neighbours in Europe
and Eurasia. Even before the accession of its western neighbour and sister-state
Romania, to the European Union in 2007, independent Moldova struggled to maintain
a precarious balance between European aspirations and its traditional ties to Euras
(King 2003; Heintz 2005; Mungiu-Pippidi 2007). The balancing act has been made al
the more difficult by the existence of a stubborn breakaway region on its easter
border (Transnistria) and an economy that plummeted to become the poorest in
Europe during the 1990s. These challenges put it, along with Georgia, in a more
difficult predicament, economically and educationally, than the relatively affluent and
undivided Baltic States. However, compared to the stable Georgian national identity
the Moldovan identity is more contentious and less well-established. Many Moldo-
vans consider themselves and their language to be Romanian. In this sense, Moldov
is most like the Former Yugoslav Republic (FYR) of Macedonia in that poverty an
a national identity crisis, based on an uncertain link to a larger neighbour, destabilise
both countries (Poulton 1995). But FYR Macedonia has no breakaway region that i
supported by Belgrade in the way that Moldova has Transnistria. In summary, th
Republic of Moldova has born many of the most insurmountable problems (povert
political instability, contention over national identity) that undermine the independen
countries that have emerged from totalitarian Communism in Eastern Europe. In this
section, a brief history of the country will highlight its background in education
policy, ethnolinguistic diversity, and economic disadvantage.
Historical context
During the time of Ottoman dominance in the Balkans, a Moldovan principality

existed with, at times, greater or lesser autonomy (King 1999, 16-18). Then, in 1812,
Russia occupied the eastern half of this principality, as a first step in the Tsar's
attempts to spread the Russian empire into the Balkans. Initially, this had little effect
on the Moldovan character of the region. However, throughout the nineteenth century,
as the western half of Moldova and the Romanian-speaking principality of Walachia
made moves towards unification into the first Romanian nation-state, the Tsar increas-
ingly instituted programmes of Russification in eastern Moldova through control of
the church, education, and forced migration (King 1999). By the late nineteenth
century, eastern Moldova's towns and small cities were largely Russian and Jewish,
with the bulk of the Moldovan and Ukrainian population in the rural areas. In 1918,
after a very brief period of independence, eastern Moldova unified with Romania.
During the interwar period, there was an intensive (but also underfunded) programme
of Romanianisation in eastern Moldova. However, the combination of a condescend-
ing attitude from Bucharest towards the rural Moldovans, repression of ethnolinguistic
minorities, and Bucharest's failure to implement economic and land reform in the
Comparative Education 1 5
Figure 1 . Map of the Republic of Moldova.

Source: CIA World Factbook.
region undermined efforts to build national awareness and pride in the largely rural
population (Livezeanu 1995). In addition, in 1923 the Soviets set up a Moldovan
Autonomous region across the Nistru/Dnister River in Ukraine, from which anti-
Romanian, Soviet propaganda was distributed.
Although brief, the two decades between the wars planted the seeds of the compet-
ing notions of national identity in Moldova today, including competing notions of the
standard language. While the Romanian government was trying (albeit imperfectly) to
16 M.H. Ciscel
convince rural eastern Moldovans to embrace a Romanian national id

Bucharest-based standard of the language, the Soviets were developing
Moldovan identity and a standard language based on the regional diale
tria. This is also the period when literacy programmes and mass educatio
to be promoted in eastern Moldova. The Second World War int
unbalanced these competing programmes. At the end of the war, eastern
integrated into the Soviet Union. Areas in the territory with sizeable Uk
lations were transferred to Ukraine, while the central rump of easter
united with part of Transnistria to form the Moldovan Soviet Soci
(MSSR). Collectivisation-induced famines and forced migration dur
Soviet period increased the Russian-speaking population in the cities a
the rural Moldovans (Dima 2001, 74-89).
A separate standard Moldovan language, which had come to resem
Romanian rather than the local dialect, was promoted alongside a sep
identity and history (Negru 2000). The main distinction between stan
and standard Romanian, from a linguistic point of view, was the orth
Romanian in Latin script and Moldovan in Cyrillic. In the MSSR, as t
Soviet Union, there was official recognition of and equality for the recog
languages, such as Moldovan. But, often in policy and regularly in pr
was the first among equals, the language of the Soviet man (King 1999). W
tion was available to most in the national language of choice and bili
officially promoted, the de facto policies and practices favoured Russian,
in many fields, the only language of higher education, and the only lang
a mandatory subject in all schools. While Moldovan was good enough
anyone who moved to the city felt obliged to learn Russian. The best job
educational opportunities existed primarily in Russian. Members of s
ties, such as the Gagauz and Bulgarians of southern Moldova, and membe
ethnicity families naturally gravitated towards Russian (Dumbrava 20
the separate Moldovan identity and acceptance of Russian dominance wer
by memories of Romanian corruption and mismanagement before an
Second World War and by the comparatively worse economic lot of t
cousins across the border in Communist Romania (Dima 2001). Howev
still many, particularly among the educated Moldovans, who resented
nance and the perceived myth of a separate Moldovan language. As th
began to unravel in the late 1980s, language emerged as a central concern
Communist Popular Front in Moldova (King 1999; Hegarty 2001). The
motion by the Popular Front and continued in the independent Repub
will be discussed in the next section.
However, before moving on to those changes in language education policy and
practice, three important political events of the past two decades need to be
mentioned. The first was the independence that came in August 1991, following the
failed coup against Gorbachev. Based on disturbingly nationalistic tendencies emerg-
ing in the Popular Front and unfounded fears of imminent unification with Romania,
leaders in Transnistria, which had never been part of Romania, declared their own
independence shortly thereafter (Heitmann 1998). In the spring and summer of 1992,
a small-scale civil war was fought along the Nistru River between separatist Transnis-
trian militias and forces loyal to the central Moldovan government, made up primarily
of policemen (Kolsto 2002). After an especially bloody month of street to street
fighting in the city of Bender (Tighina), Russian and Ukrainian forces came in to
enforce a cease-fire, which has resulted in a frozen conflict. While Transnistria

remains unrecognised internationally, it also continues to maintain control over its
territory and to build the full apparatus of a functioning state. Because the de jure
borders of Moldova contain two de facto states (Moldova and Transnistria), they will
often be discussed separately in the sections below.
The second important political event in Moldova was the passage of a very moder-
ate Constitution in 1994 (see, xiv.parlament.md/en/legalfoundation/constitution/),
which eschewed the Romanian nationalism of the Popular Front's most extreme
voices and offered some of the most generous minority policy concessions in any
European nation-state, including considerable autonomy for the Gagauz minority
(Pascaru 2000). This political shift to the centre verified the new country's general
lack of interest in unifying with Romania, thereby clearly establishing its indepen-
dence. However, the first two rounds of democratic elections in 1994 and 1998
produced ineffective governments that failed to act on pressing economic reforms
while also side-stepping decisive movement on national integration and identity.
Indeed, a showdown between a parliament of reformed Communists and a somewhat
more reform-minded president (Lucinschi) led in 2001 to a change in the Constitution
that strengthened the parliament and to the election of the first nominally Communist
government in Europe since the end of the Soviet Union (Roper 2008). Winning again
in 2005, the Communists have unexpectedly attempted to strike a balance between
east and west, by courting both the Kremlin and the European Union. But, they have
also waged a series of campaigns to roll back some of the reforms of the 1990s, most
notably attempting to raise Russian to official status alongside Moldovan, which they
insist is separate from Romanian. In fact, as this article undergoes final revisions,
another Communist victory in the 2009 parliamentary elections has led to mass
demonstrations that have included the temporary occupation and looting of govern-
ment buildings. Whether these events will lead to a rebalancing of political power and
what effect they will have on language education remain to be seen.
Societal context
Although demographic and economic statistics can, at times, be inaccurate or even

misleading, a brief overview of some census data and economic estimates can provide
a useful perspective on the recent and current state of the people of Moldova and Tran-
snistria. According to the 1989 Soviet census, there were 4.3 million people in the
MSSR, of which 64.5% were Moldovan nationals, 13.8% Ukrainian, and 13%
Russian. Nationality in the Soviet Union (and in many of its successor states) was a
unitary fact of record in one's passport and a term used to represent ethnicity more
than citizenship. With an overwhelmingly agricultural economy and only about 40%
urbanisation, the MSSR was poor compared to other European republics, but much
wealthier than many of the Central Asian republics. With independence, the character
of Moldova has changed, but only to a degree. According to concurrent 2004 censuses
in Moldova (excluding Transnistria; www.statistica.md) and Transnistria (www.prid-
nestrovie.net), the population shrank to just over 3.9 million (3.4 million in Moldova
and 0.5 in Transnistria), due to low birth-rates and post-Soviet emigration. Addition-
ally, many Moldovans, particularly youth, have left Moldova in search of work and a
better life. Moldova reported that over 8% of its counted population is temporarily
abroad working in Russia, Italy, Spain, and several other countries, while Transnistria
reported 6.5% (for further discussion of Moldovans working abroad, see Gaugas
18 M.K Ciscel
2004; Culic 2008). These numbers are believed by many to be overl

because there are many reports about emigrants who travel illeg
officially present in their town or village while working abroad. By na
ethnicities), Moldova is 78% Moldovan/Romanian, 8.4% Ukrai
Russian, while Transnistria is 3 1 .9% Moldovan, 28.8% Ukrainian, a
(in sum, 71.6%, 1 1.3%, and 9.4%, respectively).
Without the factories that were concentrated in Transnistria during
the economy of Moldova has literally collapsed. From 1994 to 2002,
National Income (GNI, Atlas Method) per capita in Moldova w
between US$400 and $500 (according to World Bank estimat
bank.org). With the recent weakness of the US dollar and ever-increasi
from abroad, the GNI per capita has been rising, up to US$1080 in 2006
by regional standards. The published average monthly salary for Moldo
2065 Moldovan Lei, roughly US$200. The average monthly sala
teacher was US$135, while only farm workers, fishermen, and arti
paid less. In contrast, construction workers earned an average of al
month (www.statistica.md). Economic statistics for Transnistria are eit
or not reliable enough to publish, but it is potentially telling that in 200
population was 68% urban while Moldova's was only 38.6%. Regar
political problems, Moldova faces economic obstacles and crises pow
undermine even clearly defined language education policies in a w
nation-state. The incredibly low salaries of teachers and other educ
the potential influence of economics on language education there a
difficulties that educational institutions, teachers, parents, and s
Moldova must face in achieving educational goals.
A final and, for the purposes of this article, very important statist
the degree to which Moldovan/Romanian and Russian are spoken by
Although census data on native language and language of daily use
are unlikely to be completely accurate, they provide a potentially usef
the linguistic lie-of-the-land. According to the 1989 Soviet censu
language was spoken by 62% as a native language and 3.9% as a se
while Russian was used by 23.2% natively and 44.6% as a second l
2007). The census found that almost 66% of the population claimed
in Moldovan, most often as the native tongue, while almost 68% cla
in Russian, of which about two-thirds was as a second language. Un
2004 census in Transnistria reported no data on languages, but it stand
Russian proficiency is much more widespread in the breakaway r
Moldova as a whole. In the territory of the central government,
included data on the self-reported native language and language o
These data are summarised in Table 1 .
These data reveal two important trends. The first is that the label 'Moldovan' for
the majority language still appears to carry considerable weight compared to 'Roma-
nian'. Even so, there is a notable urban-rural split in this tendency. Of the roughly two
million self-reported native speakers of Moldovan, 75% were rural, while 55% of self-
reported native speakers of Romanian were urban. The split is similar for the reported
languages of everyday use. The second noteworthy trend is that all native languages,
except Russian, contribute everyday-use speakers of Russian, which gains a full 5%
as a daily language over its use as a native language. This tendency reflects the Soviet-
era dominance and post-Soviet inertial prestige of the Russian language. A crucial
Table 1 . Percentage of native and everyday speakers of languages in Moldova, according to

the 2004 census (excluding Transnistria).
Language % Reported for native % Reported for everyday use

Moldovan/Romanian 76.5 75
Moldovan 60 59
Romanian 16.5 16
Russian 11 16
Ukrainian 5.5 4
Gagauz 4 3
Bulgarian 1.5 1
Source: www.statistica.md
weakness of these 2004 census data is that, unlike the 1989 data, they fail to capture
the degree of bilingual proficiency and practice in the population. There are no data
available anywhere that accurately and completely capture the degree to which
Russian is still learned and used on the street, in business transactions, and in other
public contexts, even though there is strong anecdotal evidence that Russian maintains
a dominance and role much larger than the statistics on ethnicity and language of
everyday use would suggest. Also, the strong connection drawn between national
(read ethnic) and linguistic identity in Soviet and post-Soviet culture almost certainly
skews the language data in the direction of perceived ethnic affiliation. These
weaknesses aside, the data from these censuses, together with an understanding of its
basic political history, provide a general overview of the linguistic character and
background of the country. Ethnographic research that I have carried out in Moldova
since 1999 (Ciscel 2006, 2007) sustains the image of deadlocked competition between
majority Romanian/Moldovan and minority Russian. In fact, the sentiments of many
educated and urbanised Moldovans is that these statistics overstate the improvements
in the status of the majority language and underrepresent the inertial prestige and
dominance of the Russian language and, by extension, Russian language speakers in
Moldova.
Reform in language education

As is evident in the section above, the Republic of Moldova inherited upon indepen-
dence a linguistic atmosphere in which the language of a small, urban minority domi-
nated public, political, and economic life while the majority language was stigmatised
and wrapped in what many educated speakers considered a false Moldovan identity.
In Soviet educational institutions, only the Russian language was a mandatory subject
in all schools and those who finished schools in the majority and other minority
languages found their economic and higher-educational opportunities severely
limited. In addition, the separate status, Cyrillic script, and Russian loanwords that
characterised official Moldovan in the Soviet period were often perceived as an insult
to the language by those educated Romanian-speakers who resisted Russian domi-
nance (Heitmann 1998; Turcanu 2001, 154-161). As Gorbachev's perestroïka took
hold across the Soviet Union, the reversal of Russian dominance and the establish-
ment of national language movements were common in the republics. In the
MSSR, these issues were particularly prominent and contentious. In 1989, newly
20 M.K Ciscel
elected anti-Communist reformers in Moldova's government, al

reformed Communists, passed the first major reform in what became
independence.
This reform was the Language Law of 31 August 1989, now a national holiday
ambiguously called Limba Noastrã [Our Language], (after a well-known nationalistic
poem from the early twentieth century by Alexei Mateevici). The law achieved three
reform goals: establishing Romanian as the majority language, making it the sole offi-
cial language of the republic, and returning it to the Latin script. Subsequent laws
required government workers to be proficient in both Romanian and Russian by 1994
and removed Russian as a mandatory subject in all schools, replacing it with the
unnamed state language (Romanian or Moldovan). These reforms mirrored, albeit in
a more moderate form, the language laws of the Baltic and Caucasian republics. They
were more moderate in that they neither attempted to exclude Russian from govern-
ment nor to marginalise it in educational institutions. Indeed, to have taken such an
extreme nationalistic approach would have been unworkable, as it ultimately was in
the Baltic States. However, given the considerably greater hegemony of Russian in the
MSSR compared to the Baltics, the reforms in the 1989 Language Law were perceived
as radical and threatening by many Russian speakers, particularly in Transnistria.
Rather than seek inclusion and find compromise, the Romanian-speaking leaders of
the Popular Front in the capital, Chiçinãu, and the Russian-speaking leaders in the
capital, and particularly in Transnistria, engaged in mutually exclusionary nationalis-
tic rhetoric that led ultimately to the disastrous civil war of 1992 and the emergence
of two governments, an official one on most of the MSSR territory and a separatist
one on the small territory of Transnistria.
In Transnistria, there was a full reversal of the 1989 reforms, which had been
implemented there to only a limited degree anyway. The only other language reform
to Soviet-era policy that seems to have passed there since its de facto independence is
the addition of Ukrainian as an official language alongside Moldovan and Russian
(www.pridnestrovie.net). As in Soviet times, Russian enjoys a privileged status
among equals. In education, parents are allowed to choose a school based on preferred
language of instruction. But Moldovan is generally still taught using the Cyrillic script
and old Soviet textbooks - although there are unverified reports of new textbooks,
they would likely involve small revisions to and reprinting of the Soviet ones. More-
over, higher education in Transnistria is available in Russian only. As such, it is not
surprising that for 2005 Transnistria reported that only 14% of schoolchildren (1 1,000
out of 79,000 total) were being taught in Moldovan, even though the region is 31.9%
ethnic Moldovan. Notably, between 1989 and 1992, a handful of Romanian-medium
schools using the Latin script and newer textbooks were set up in Transnistrian towns
and cities. The fate of those schools, along with the dampening role of Transnistria on
Moldovan policy as a whole, will be discussed in the section that follows.
In the rest of Moldova, the reforms of 1989, which were primarily about language
identity and status, were generally upheld. Indeed, the translation of these reforms into
educational policy has been the most lasting achievement of early pan-Romanian
nationalism and the area of greatest political contention concerning language issues
since 1994. The aftermath of the 1992 civil war saw the marginalisation of Romanian
nationalists in the 1994 elections and a reversal of the identity component of the
Language Law in the 1994 Constitution of independent Moldova. The Constitution
identifies the sole official language as Moldovan, rather than Romanian, but keeps it
in the Latin script, making it virtually indistinguishable from standard Romanian
(Dyer 1999). It also acknowledges and protects minority languages, mentioning only
Russian by name, and encourages the study of internationally important foreign
languages. The Constitution also guarantees access to education in the native language
and mandates lessons in Moldovan, as the state language, in all schools. The Educa-
tion Law, passed in 1995, reinforces the Constitution. Article 8, on the language of
instruction, reads:
(1) The State guarantees... the right to choose the language of education and
instruction at all levels and stages of education.
(2) The right of citizens to education and instruction in the native language is
guaranteed through the creation of the necessary number of institutions,
classes, and groups, as well as the necessary conditions for their functioning.
(3) The study of the state language of the Republic of Moldova is obligatory in all
educational institutions. The requirement to teach and support it is established
by the educational standards of the State. The responsibility for assuring the
process of supporting the state language in all educational institutions is
carried by the Ministry of Education and Science and by the local authorities
of public administration, (www.edu.gov.md; translation by the author)
The most revealing aspects of the wording in this article are the absence of any
identifier for the state language (Moldovan or Romanian) and the suggestion that the
state language is not only in need of 'support', but also that gaining this support
involves an extended 'process'. In other words, one can read between the lines to see
the struggle that the state language is undertaking in counter-balancing the Soviet-era
dominance of minority Russian, particularly in educational institutions. At the same
time, the law establishes an equitable and democratically grounded ideal that envi-
sions an education system that reinvigorates the state language while sustaining
minority languages and encouraging a more genuine bilingualism among the linguistic
minorities than was afforded Moldovan and other minority speakers when Russian
was dominant. Even so, as in Soviet times, lofty ideals in the law can come undone in
the face of linguistic realities and practices on the ground. Aside from problems raised
by the economic poverty outlined in the previous section, the two most powerful real-
ity checks for the idealism of the language education law in independent Moldova
have been the inertial dominance of Russian in urban areas, particularly in private
economic spheres, and the lack of a clear, unified identity for the majority language.
Although language identity is ultimately a political issue, the choice of a Moldovan
identity makes little sense linguistically and provides little advantage status-wise in
the face of standard Russian (Ciscel 2006). The only apparent advantage in choosing
a Moldovan identity lies in the political smothering of calls for reunification with
Romania, which, at this point, seems extremely unlikely, no matter what the state
language is called.
Given the well-established legitimacy and prestige of the standard language called
Romanian, especially compared to Moldovan, the chances for majority language
dominance and a more equitable bilingualism in Moldova appear to improve under the
complete set of reforms passed in 1989, including the Romanian identity (for further
discussion, see Ciscel 2006). This aspect of the 1989 Language Law has actually been
maintained to a remarkable degree in most educational institutions, given the political
dominance of those who prefer or insist on the Moldovan label. Even after the 1994
Constitution, most institutions and textbooks used in schools and universities have
22 M.H. Ciscel
referred to the state language as Romanian. In addition, for at least

independence, all schools were required to teach the history of the Roma
of a national history (Enciu 2005). As will be discussed in the next
extensions of the identity component of the 1989 Language Law beyond
back have regularly been resisted and challenged by political leaders
resolutely defended by students, intellectuals, and political nationali
2005). Smaller, less contentious reforms in education, such as changes in
practices (West and Crighton 1999), have been carried out successfull
Before moving on to the discussion of the gradual relapse in langu
tion policy, some educational statistics need to be considered. The nu
that a greater equitability in access to native language education ha
implemented and that the reform-minded educational leaders have
impact on the long-term potential outcome of language reforms in the c
change, which will later be shown to have a linguistic impact, is the intr
increase of lyceums at the secondary level instead of the tradition
gymnasiums. Lyceums keep children a year or two longer, providing
ised education and greater preparation for university. This trend i
evident in urban areas, where, in 2007, 33.5% of secondary schoolch
lyceums as opposed to only 13% in rural areas (Biroul National d
Republicii Moldova 2007a). In primary and secondary schools at the
the school year in September 2007, 79.6% of children studied in the
20.2% in Russian, and 0.2% in other languages, including Ukrainian,
English. Among foreign languages, 59% studied French, 47% En
German, among others (some students studied more than one). Once again
a notable urban-rural split. Students in rural schools mostly took F
English was much more common in urban areas. Students in lyceums gen
ied both French and English (Biroul National de Statistica al Repub
2007a).
In comparison to the school year that started in 1999, the number of children in
Moldovan/Romanian-medium schools had increased by 2% in 2007, while enrolments
at Russian-medium schools had declined by a similar amount (calculated by the
author, based on data available at www.statistica.md). Moreover, the number of
students studying French had declined by 2.5% while the number choosing English
had increased by almost 13%, suggesting that greater emphasis is being placed on
foreign languages and on English, in particular. The trends suggest an increasing
demand for education in the state language and a troubling move away from institu-
tionally supported local bilingualism (in Romanian and Russian). Essentially, the
numbers indicate that four out of five children in Moldova are educated in schools
where Romanian is the primary language of instruction and only foreign languages,
mostly English and French, are taught as subjects. Even so, many urban children still
develop strong proficiency in Russian on the street and in their families (Dumbrava
2004). Additionally, the exclusion of Russian from these schools serves the goal of
creating a greater role and increased prestige for the state language. In the future, the
reintroduction of Russian as a subject in at least some of these schools may well be
justified. For now, the general prestige of Russian is still great enough that many
young people learn it even without instruction. The danger is that the majority and
minority ethnic communities in Moldova could become more divided if educational
institutions focus more attention on crucial foreign languages than on the language of
the local other.
Comparative Education 23
The reforms that have been in place in Moldova's educational institutions since
independence seem, overall, to have made ground in achieving the goals of supporting
the state language and protecting Russian as a minority language, even though a
broader, more equitable bilingualism may ultimately be threatened. Finally, a few
statistics about higher education need to be considered (Biroul National de Statistica
al Republicii Moldova 2007b). In the 31 institutions at this level in Moldova, 69.5%
of the 123,000 students in 2007 were instructed through the medium of the state
language, while 27% studied in Russian and 3.5% in other languages, both local and
foreign. Of the 83% of students who attended public universities, three out of four had
to pay tuition in 2007, in contrast to only one of two in 2000. While many of those I
have known in Moldova have emphasised that it is easier to study in Romanian than
it was in the early 1990s, the distribution of students is still weighted more heavily
towards those studying in Russian than the country's total population would suggest.
In addition, the introduction in recent years of tuition costs favours students from
urban areas where Russian-speaking minorities are larger, effectively undermining a
more equitable representation of Moldovan/Romanian speakers in higher education.
Despite these negative aspects, the overall trend since independence has been for
greater representation of the state language in universities, while maintaining courses
taught in minority Russian. In this sense, as in primary and secondary education, the
reforms in language education policy have been effective and reasonably just.
Relapse into Soviet-era policies

As was discussed in the previous section, the language education reforms in Moldova
since perestroïka have been largely effective in beginning the process of adjusting the
status of the state language and creating greater equitability in access to education for
linguistic majority and minority alike. Furthermore, the education system seems to be
reacting to the global pressures for more highly specialised young people and greater
proficiency in dominant world languages, such as English. Given the overwhelming
economic and political challenges that educators face, these successes are all the more
noteworthy. However, there has been a strong counter-reform movement, not only in
breakaway Transnistria, where reforms were either never implemented or quickly
rolled back, but also in the rest of Moldova, where the government and parliament
have been controlled by counter-reformers since 1994. A discussion of Transnistria' s
rejection of reform will be followed by an elaboration of some of the key events and
struggles in the Moldovan government's attempt to undo various aspects of the 1989
Language Law, particularly over the past decade.
A key thorn in the side of the Transnistrian separatist regime since the early 1990s
has been the existence of a handful of Romanian-medium schools on its territory
(Andrysek and Grecu 2003; Roper 2005). These schools were established in the late
1980s and very early 1990s to provide instruction using standard Romanian in the
Latin script, particularly for children of educated Moldo vans in the larger urban areas
of Transnistria: Tiraspol, Bender (Tighina), and Râbnita. Licensed by the Education
Ministry in Chiçinãu rather than in Tiraspol, they functioned for much of the 1990s as
'foreign' schools in the breakaway territory. However, in 2004, frustrated by failed
attempts to negotiate independence or even a favourable degree of autonomy with the
nominally Communist government in Moldova, the separatist regime threatened to
close the schools by force if they refused to follow the law of Transnistria requiring
Moldovan to be taught in the Cyrillic script. In July, during the summer recess,
24 MM. Ciscel
separatist authorities and militias occupied the schools, forcibly rem

from one and locking children from an orphanage adjacent to anoth
accommodation for a night (for detailed discussion, see Roper 2005
Negotiations to reopen the schools initially took place between
Transnistrian authorities, but when they fell apart, a blockade of
between the regions was put in place, followed by street demonstration
ist regime finally relented a few weeks after school had started in Sept
that the children of these schools had gone without lessons or had been
to other schools in Moldovan territory. During the standoff, there
letters to parents from the Transnistrian authorities threatening to
parental rights if they failed to put their children in Cyrillic-based Mo
The leader of Transnistria, Igor Smirnov, explained these actions as bein
by the fact that foreign (read Romanian) agents were spreading inter-e
the schools. By October, most of the schools had reopened, having b
licensed again as foreign institutions. One school, in Transnistria' s
had been so badly damaged by the militia that repairs delayed its r
January 2005. Tragically and somewhat ironically, at the same time tha
regime was locking Romanian-speaking children out of their first d
Transnistria, the horrific seizure and bombing of a Russian-medium sch
carried out by Chechen separatists in Beslan, Russia. Both events
reminders that political extremism and instability can have a devast
educational policy and practice.
Even more tragic than the temporary school closures, however, is th
of continued Soviet-style policies of soft Russification and Moldova
that Moldovan children in Transnistria, many already disadvantag
background, have endured. Moreover, the mere existence of what is esse
MSSR in Transnistria serves to threaten the otherwise fairly well-estab
in the rest of Moldova and to radicalise political actors and educators wh
greater or lesser reform (Anderson 2005). Even the notion of a sep
language would offer greater security to its speakers if there were not
across the Nistru River where this language still serves as a marker of r
ness and as an educational and occupational barrier for its speakers.
occasional presence of extreme Romanian chauvinism that Igor Smi
be fighting in 2004 would be significantly weakened in the absence
symbolised by Soviet-style policies in Transnistria. Such a weakenin
nationalism could potentially strengthen the moderate reforms in p
and contribute to movement towards a more equitable bilingualism i
Russian throughout the country.
Aside from Transnistria, the language education reforms in Mold
considerable counter-reform forces from within the central governmen
components of the 1989 Language Law (Romanian identity, sole off
Latin script), only the use of the Latin script has gone relatively unchal
tion to drawing up the country's moderate Constitution that reverted t
language label, the 1994 parliament, which was the first fully democ
and which was dominated by an agrarian party made up of former Com
poned indefinitely implementation of the law requiring government wo
both the state language and Russian. Throughout the 1990s, calls from p
leaders to ban the use of the term 'Romanian' as the state language in ed
tutions and the media led to massive street demonstrations by students
intellectuals, and nationalistic Romanian political leaders. In each case, the demonstra-
tors managed to hold off counter-reform pressure.
The two presidents during the 1990s, Mircea Snegur and Petru Lucinschi, had both
been high-level Communist officials in Soviet times. Both resisted using the term
Romanian to describe their language while in office. But both, since leaving office,
have admitted that they believe that Romanian and Moldovan are the same language.
During their governments, it became common to avoid the identity crisis altogether by
calling the language limba de stat [state language] or limba noastra [our language].
Lucinschi, a parliamentarian at the time, has since lamented that, in 1994, it was polit-
ically impossible to include the term Romanian in the Constitution, for instance in
parentheses next to Moldovan (Lucinschi 2007, 255-276). A struggle over power-
sharing between President Lucinschi and parliament in 2000 reflected the ineffective
nature of the country's Constitutional design and led to an amendment that gave
greater power to parliament. In early parliamentary elections in 2001, the revived
Party of Communists in Moldova won an absolute majority and subsequently chose a
Communist president, Vladimir Voronin. The Communists have since insisted that
Moldovan is a separate language from Romanian and have put greater effort into
countering the cultural and educational reforms of the previous decade. Their election
soured already strained relations with Romania and put Romanian nationalists in
Moldova on the defensive (Cash 2007; Ihrig 2008).
In early 2002, Voronin and the Communist leaders of parliament proposed laws that
would elevate Russian to official status alongside Moldovan and reintroduce Russian
as a mandatory subject in all educational institutions (Ciscel 2008). At the same time,
members of the pro-Romanian Popular Christian Democratic Party were being
followed by state security and, at times, deprived of their rights to free speech, among
others. Huge street demonstrations, in part organised by the Christian Democrats, were
organised weekly, eventually leading to a permanent anti-Communist demonstration
and tent city in the middle of the road that runs between parliament and the president's
office building. The proposed laws were eventually withdrawn. Moreover, the Commu-
nists lost a key legal case in May 2002 before the Council of Europe on their suppression
of the Christian Democrats (Council of Europe parliamentary Assembly 2002). By
2003, Voronin seemed to have moderated a bit, shifting his original external orientation
towards Russia to a new policy of eventual integration into the European Union.
At the same time, the Communist government began a new, somewhat less conten-
tious struggle over the teaching of history in state schools (Ihrig 2008). Since the early
1990s, both world history and the history of the Romanians had been required in all
secondary schools and for admittance to institutions of higher education. Ostensibly to
follow a European trend of teaching national and world history together in a curriculum
called integrated history, the government began to plan a shift to such a curriculum.
Reformers saw the change as an attempt to reintroduce a Soviet-style history of Mold-
ova in place of the courses on the Romanian people. Following some demonstrations
and stalling from within the Education Ministry, the history of the Romanians was
removed as a requirement in 2005 without being replaced by an integrated history.
Also in 2005, Voronin and the Communist majority in parliament were re-elected,
although by a slimmer margin. On another cultural battleground, the government won
small victories against pro-Romanian media outlets, particularly in its struggles to
suppress elements of the state-owned TeleRadio Company. But none of these changes
affected language teaching policy or practice directly, as the proposed laws of 2002
would have. The Communists continue to insist that Moldovan is a separate language
26 M.H. Ciscel
from Romanian and to discourage the use of the term Romanian in

(Lobjakas and Vitu 2008). The impact of the recent, troubled parliam
in 2009 is still unclear. The liberal opposition government that took ove
re-run of April's ballot (which led to rioting and looting of the parl
when another Communist victory was announced) seems poised to fail t
ident, which will lead to a further re-run of parliamentary elections in
other words, the current political instability and constitutional crisis h
tial for substantive change in language education policy, but so far the
lems have only weakened the Moldovan state and its institutions.
Although these threats to language education reform have been unsuc
have also been regular enough to keep the reformed policies and pra
supporters in an insecure, defensive position. Together with the rel
Transnistria, the efforts of the counter-reformers in Moldova justify a
ticism about the potential resilience of current policy. As a final illu
insecurity, language policy reared its head again in summer 2008 as the
of Moldova and Romania prepared a treaty to define the relationship be
sister-states, one made all the more pressing by Romania's ascensio
European Union (www.azi.md/news?ID=50291). One point in the trea
dent Voronin was insisting on was that it be signed in two versions: one
and the other in Moldovan. Because of the educational practices in M
where the language is normally called Romanian, the difference is
escape the majority of students and schoolchildren.
Conclusion
The Republic of Moldova has faced a number of difficult challenges in emerging from
the Soviet experience not only as an independent country, but also as one poised to
join the advanced democratic societies of Western Europe. Despite the severe problem
raised by the breakaway status of Transnistria and the challenges from the political
leaders in government, the language education reforms set in place just before inde-
pendence continue to provide a needed re-balancing of the status between majority
Romanian and minority Russian, while at the same time maintaining considerable
educational opportunities for linguistic minorities. Although there is a potential threat
to bilingualism in the two most important languages of the country from the fact that
Russian is rarely taught in Romanian-medium schools, this imbalance can be partially
justified by the goal of reinvigorating the status of Romanian. In the future, once the
state language is more secure, a readjustment of this policy might contribute to greater
potential for sustained and equitable bilingualism in the Moldovan populace. A final
lesson from this study for those who make and implement language education policy
in any country is that these language issues are not only pedagogical, but also political.
It is important to attempt to minimise the potential damage that can be caused by the
impact of extreme political positions and actors on the education and opportunities of
children, as so vividly illustrated by the cases of those educated in Moldovan and
Romanian in breakaway Transnistria.
Notes on contributor
Matthew H. Ciscel holds a Ph.D. in linguistics from the University of South Carolina, Columbia,
and is an associate professor of linguistics in the Department of English at Central Connecticut
State University in New Britain, CT, USA. His publications include The language of the
Moldovans: Romania, Russia, and identity in an ex-Soviet Republic (2007, Lexington Books)
and several journal articles on the sociolinguistics of post-Soviet transition in Moldova and
adjacent republics.
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Bilingual Policy in Moldova

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Reform and relapse in bilingual policy in Moldova

Author(s): Matthew H. Ciscel

Reform and relapse in bilingual policy in Mol

In the Republic of Moldova, language education policy has shifted since

ISSN 0305-0068 print/ISSN 1360-0486 online

policy and positioning on language policy still falls short of trends

The context of Moldovan reforms

During the time of Ottoman dominance in the Balkans, a Moldovan principality

Figure 1 . Map of the Republic of Moldova.

convince rural eastern Moldovans to embrace a Romanian national id

enforce a cease-fire, which has resulted in a frozen conflict. While Transnistria

Although demographic and economic statistics can, at times, be inaccurate or even

2004; Culic 2008). These numbers are believed by many to be overl

Table 1 . Percentage of native and everyday speakers of languages in Moldova, according to

Language % Reported for native % Reported for everyday use

Reform in language education

elected anti-Communist reformers in Moldova's government, al

referred to the state language as Romanian. In addition, for at least

Relapse into Soviet-era policies

separatist authorities and militias occupied the schools, forcibly rem

from Romanian and to discourage the use of the term Romanian in

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