Constructing national history in political discourse: Coherence and contradiction (Moldova, 2001-2009)

Abstract

History is one of the many instruments available for the persuasive construction of a nation. In Moldova, the Party of the Communists of the Republic of Moldova (PCRM), in office from 2001 to 2009, advocated for a Soviet-based version of the Moldovan nation. This “Moldovanism” boasted of the existence of a “Moldovan People” and was relied upon to justify the independence of the former Romanian province. Vladimir Voronin, the party's leader and president of the Republic during this period, promoted this “civic” Moldovan nation and created what seemed to be a coherent and ad hoc construction of an independent Moldovan nation. This paper focuses on communist political discourse during this eight year period. Through the use of Critical Discourse Analysis, this paper focuses on the discursive construction of the Moldovan nation. It is based on Voronin's official speeches and messages from key occasions such as Independence Day and Victory Day. This paper demonstrates the varied use of history in these speeches which improves understanding of the process of the construction of a nation. Moreover, it demonstrates that this construction, far from being coherent, was also sometimes contradictory. Indeed, discourse was adapted to the immediate context and audience. Finally, the paper explains how an explicitly “civic” discourse can be implicitly and, sometimes even explicitly, “ethnic” and “exclusive”.

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