BORDERS AND TERRITORIAL IDENTITY IN MOLDOVAN ASSR: TRANSNISTRIA AND THE “BESSARABIAN QUESTION” BETWEEN 1918 AND 1940
BORDERS AND TERRITORIAL IDENTITY IN MOLDOVAN ASSR: TRANSNISTRIA AND THE “BESSARABIAN QUESTION” BETWEEN 1918 AND 1940

Summary/Abstract: Bessarabia’s unification with the rest of the Romanian historical provinces in order to create the Greater Romania in 1918 opened up a dispute between the new state and Soviet Russia. The loss of its previous gubernia to the detriment of Romania, combined with a series of strategies imposed by its tremendous internal transformation, made the Soviet Union to reconsider its western borders. This article provides an overview of the formation of the Moldavan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (MASSR) – the political ancestor of contemporary Dnestr Moldovan Republic or Transnistria – and then proceeds to analyse its role as propaganda and political tools inside the USSR. In such context, Transnistria will be studied as borderland of Greater Romania in order to better understand its sociopolitical profile in accordance with Soviet policies. The main aim of this paper is to give an objective account of the events from the historical perspective and to reassess the socio-political engineering which the MASSR underwent from its creation in 1924 up until its union with Bessarabia in 1940.

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