New Europe College Regional Program Yearbook 2001-2002

TAMARA CÃRÃUª
firstly, failing to distinguish between genuine constructs and long-term
processes and structures in which successive generations have been
socialized; secondly, concentrating on the actions of the elite at the
expense of popular beliefs and actions; and thirdly, neglecting the powerful
affective dimensions of nations and nationalism. 84
It can be presumed that there is an unexplainable remainder from
Moldova’s national predicament, which the instrumentalist-modernist
approach cannot explain. This can be called “the primordialist remainder”
due to its reference to what are considered “primordial” givens, that is,
language and special bonds with the “mother-country”. In point of fact,
the language of primordialism and ethno-nationalism – “Romanian
brothers”, “mother country Romania”, “the mutilated body of the country”,
etc. – and the images and phrases in which their unconscious convictions
are expressed – blood, family, brother, sister, mother, forefathers, ancestors
and home – were used by the national awakeners in 1988-89. 85
As argued in the previous chapter, the nationalist claims of Romanian
oriented and Moldovan oriented discourses were not separate during the
1988-1991 agitation. In fact, they were unified in their struggle against
Soviet rule and Russification. Both orientations considered their “national
awakening” to be a part of the primordial rhythms of a nation and saw it
as the passage from ineffable origins to efflorescence, then to decay due
to foreign power which is followed by the current glorious rebirth. Both
discourses considered their primordial attachments to be overriding and
ineffable. 86
After the discourses separated, it became clear that the primordialist
language belonged mainly to the Romanian oriented discourse. So, does
this mean that the Moldovan oriented discourse can be explained by the
pragmatism of political leaders and that Romanian oriented discourse is
responsible for the emotional aspects of nationalism? This is not entirely
the case since the Moldovan oriented discourse is not lacking in emotional
power.
So, if the “true primordial givens” are the same – language, blood,
ancestry, community, customs – how is it that these can engender different
attachments or, in any case, different emotions? As Clifford Geertz argues,
this ineffability results from the importance which human beings attribute
to the cultural givens, rather than from any intrinsic properties of the ties
themselves “for virtually every person, in every society, at almost all
times, some attachments seem to flow more from a sense of natural –
some would say spiritual – affinity than from social interaction”. 87
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