On the cultural margins

Until recently, multi-ethnic Moldova with its mixture of “persons, tribes, dialects, conditions” is slowly turning into a multicultural society where national communities are being formed. At an informal level, because formally they appeared back in the nineties of the last century. These were (and are) public cultural and educational organizations that exist on grants and sponsorship donations, organizing concerts on holidays and round tables on weekdays. Sometimes they correctly defend the rights of their compatriots, making statements or open letters to the country’s leadership.

At the informal level, everything is different. So far, the watershed line visibly lies in the linguistic plane, but every year it becomes wider, deeper, more tortuous, affecting different spheres of social, cultural, and political life.

However, even if a Russian-speaking citizen speaks and writes in the state language as if it were his native language, he still remains a stranger. Several years ago, articles by the editor-in-chief of the newspaper "Literaturasiarta" ("Literature and Art") under the general title "Rusoaicele" ("Russian Women") made a splash in Moldova. In them, the author argued that all the evil comes from these Russian women, who rule over their unlucky husbands and give birth to exclusively inferior children in mixed marriages. Let's ignore the fact that the racist went unpunished. But when in 2010 he received the highest award of Moldova - the Order of the Republic - for all his work, this was already an indicator.

Another example. For two years, Moldova could not elect a president. Among the potential candidates for this post was the daughter of the first president of the republic, Mircea Snegur, Natalia German. Commenting on this fact for local media, the head of the Moldovan delegation to PACE, parliament member Anna Gutu, said that German cannot be the head of state, since her native language is Russian.

Needless to say, the official authorities diligently do not notice many negative things associated with the Russian-speaking population of the country. Russian culture found itself in a corner. Back in the early nineties, the Russian section stopped working in the Writers' Union. Therefore, in 1998, some writers united in the Association of Russian-Speaking Writers of Moldova. And in January of this year, members of this organization sent an open letter to the Ministry of Culture. “We exist,” they wrote, “although you are trying to pretend that we do not exist in nature. Poems, prose, journalism and translations of our authors are constantly published on the pages of reputable foreign publications, in collective almanacs and collections, on international websites, and only in its own republic does Russian literature remain in spiritual underground, not supported in any way by the state!”

According to the chairman of the Association, Olesya Rudyagina, over the twenty-odd years of independence, state publishing houses have published no more than a dozen books in Russian, although the works of their Moldovan colleagues are published in the hundreds. “It’s not a matter of opposition,” says Rudyagina, we are happy for our Moldovan colleagues, but we are offended by this attitude.” Of course, Russian writers have the opportunity to publish in other countries, but the question is: why is there no such opportunity in their own? By the way, contrary to Moldovan legislation.

The Russian theater does not have the best fate. There is a unique group in Chisinau - the State Youth Theater "From Rose Street", which grew out of an ordinary school drama club created 35 years ago. For four years in a row, he held at his base the international festival of chamber theaters and small-form performances "Moldfest. Rampa.ru". Nikolai Kolyada with his theater, People's Artist of Russia Yuri Nazarov and Honored Artist of the Russian Federation Lyudmila Maltseva performed twice on the festival stage; theaters from Israel, Germany, Great Britain, Estonia and Lithuania, Ukraine and Belarus, Italy, Luxembourg, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan brought their productions here. Georgia, Romania, finally. But this festival does not appear in the reports of the Ministry of Culture. Because he is "ru". Officials also did not notice the open letter signed by famous actors, directors, critics from different countries, where they asked to complete the promised building for the theater.

A few months ago, journalist Petru Bogatu, known for his nationalist views, said that national minorities would never integrate into Moldovan society (showing the usual forgetfulness and not specifying that they were pushed to the margins of this very society). And the blame for this, according to the author, is, firstly, Putin, who decided to return his country to its former greatness, and secondly, the ethnic majority itself, which allows for pluralism of opinions. Bogatu believes that “the power of culture is necessary.” But “primitive Moldovanism cannot resist the power of Russian culture,” so it is necessary to activate the Romanian cultural paradigm. And this point of view practically coincides with the official one.