Beyond Crimea: The New Russian Empire

In Moldova, Moscow’s perception of local minorities and even ethnic Moldovans as “compatriots” is likewise puzzling. Sharing the same language and culture with neighboring Romania, the Moldova principality came under the influence of Moscow at the beginning of the nineteenth century with its incorporation into the Russian Empire. For the next two hundred years, Moldova would face Russification policies while the native Romanian was eliminated from official use.⁹ The Stalin era saw executions and deportations of locals to Siberia or Central Asia while new, Russian-speaking workers were brought in.¹⁰ In addition the “Moldovan” language was introduced, which was essentially the same as Romanian but written in the Cyrillic alphabet.¹¹ The conflict in Transnistria emerged following Moldovan independence from the USSR, when Chisinau reinstated Romanian as the state language and in 1990 Transnistria declared its independence from Moldova, seeking instead to continue to be part of the Soviet Union.¹² Initially the Kremlin was skeptical toward Transnistria’s independence and ability to control the region, and the Russian media described the independence movement as “rebellion against perestroika.”¹³ Transnistria’s activists also toyed with the idea of integrating with Ukraine but increasingly the idea of autonomy and identity tied to Moldova’s Soviet history gained ground.¹⁴ Today, the people of Transnistria whom Moscow has long sought to protect as Russian compatriots in fact are almost equally divided between Moldovans, Ukrainians, and Russians, with Moldovans being the most numerous. There are two more regions in Moldova with separatist proclivities and Russian support: the Taraclia district, where some 65 percent of the residents are Russian-speaking ethnic Bulgarians; and the autonomous region of Gagauzia, where some 80 percent of the population are Gagauz—an Eastern Orthodox nation of Turkish and Bulgarian descent. Though the Gagauz have their own Turkic language, the majority today are Russian speakers, in great part due to Soviet Russification policies.¹⁵

Ukraine

Unlike Georgia and Moldova, Ukraine is a Slavic nation, making it easier for Russia to impose a Kremlin-driven narrative of its culture and history, with the aim of appropriating Ukraine for its imperial project. Moscow likes to promote the concept that Kievan Rus’ formed the ninth-century cradle of Slavic (Russian, according to Moscow) civilization in the territory of Ukraine. This is argued as evidence that Ukrainians and Russians are essentially one and the same people.¹⁶ Ukrainians lay claim to their own distinct history and identity, and argue that “Rus’ ” historically referred to the lands and peoples of Ukraine and Belarus. Until 1547 Russia was never referred to as such but rather by the name of its capital city: Moscovia—officially known as the Grand Duchy of Moscow. The relatively modern concept of Russia only developed during the reign of Ivan the Terrible, who inherited the title of Grand Prince of Moscow from his father, Vasili III, and in 1547 assumed the title of Grand Prince and Tsar of All the Russias.¹⁷ At most, Ukrainians acknowledge their common roots with Russians until the tenth century, but some even question whether Russia is truly a Slavic nation.¹⁸ Ukraine’s history with its so-called brother-nation has been difficult since the end of the eighteenth century when Kiev lost the remains of its autonomy to the Russian Empire.¹⁹ In the nineteenth century the Ukrainian nation faced aggressive Russification policies from Moscow, including closure of its main institution of higher learning, the Kiev-Mohyla Academy, suppression of its culture, prohibition from publishing books and teaching in Ukrainian, and even banning of building churches in the Ukrainian Baroque style.²⁰ The Stalinist era was the cruelest to Ukraine. In the early 1930s, most Ukrainian intellectuals and officials were repressed and killed, while the repression of Ukrainian peasants took the shape of the politically motivated famine, the Holodomor (extermination by hunger), in which around 5 million Ukrainians perished.²¹ Throughout the Soviet era, Russification policies and an influx of Russian immigrants persisted.

In eastern Ukraine the developments were similar but Russification was more pronounced. Before the 1850s, Ukraine’s eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk were inhabited predominantly by rural Ukrainians, but one could also meet peasants of various ethnic origins—Russians, Greeks, Germans, Tatars, and others. Industrialization brought labor migrants from central Russia and elsewhere.²² During Soviet times, many prisoners were deported from all over the Soviet Union to the Donbas to work in coal mines and factories, resulting in a more diverse ethnic composition in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions than elsewhere in Ukraine.²³ However, while the Russian language was popular, ethnic Ukrainians remained the majority.²⁴