Plural: History, Culture, Society (Nov 2018)
Chişinăul în anii Primului Război Mondial: de la periferia Imperiului Rus la provincia României Mari
Abstract
Between 1914 and 1921, the population inhabiting the region of Bessarabia witnessed, although from behind the frontline, the world conflagration, which was followed by major political changes that detached the region from the Russian Empire, then created the conditions for a short independence period, to finally attach the province to “Greater Romania” in 1918. The history of the city of Chișinău during this tumultuous time period is discussed – for the first time – with a specific focus on its dynamics as a place in which two political systems, defined by the imperial and the national model, confronted each other while also coexisting in different settings. The authors are especially interested in the trajectories of individuals, communities, and institutions linked to the city. They reconstruct the way local actors acknowledged political changes, but also how they exercised agency and imposed their own agendas, frequently based on local, group, or personal needs. The case of Chișinău is relevant for the understanding of the major impact of political transition(s) on the local level. It shows that there were various local actors, all of them being part and parcel of this transition, within which they had their own story to tell. Whereas for some political or social groups 1918 meant a new beginning, for others it was the time of political vacuum, from which certain dividends could be extracted. At the same time, for the third group, i.e., for most members of the former imperial elite, it meant the beginning of the struggle for the preservation of imperial loyalty, including the former empire’s symbolic institutions, cultural spaces, and „places of memory.”
