The making of an empty Moldovan category within a multiethnic Transnistrian nation

To legitimize separation from Moldova, Transnistrian elites have been constructing a civic Transnistrian nation, subsuming local ethnic Russian, Ukrainian, and Moldovan identities. This article first identifies changes to the Transnistrian nation-building strategy: from an emphasis on Moldovan nationhood in the early 1990s to oppose “Romanianization” in Chisinau, to Transnistrian nationhood mainly after Moldovanism was adopted in Chisinau in 2001. It then shows how this multiethnic nation is being constructed, with a particular emphasis on the place of Transnistrian Moldovans. While the Moldovan identity category is being institutionalized as a part of the Transnistrian civic nation, its ecological niches are being emptied of Romanian/Bessarabian attributes and invested with Russianness. As a result, “Moldovan” now seems an empty identity category in Transnistria