Moldovenism

Moldovenism is a political term used to refer to the support and promotion of the Moldovan identity and Moldovan culture.

Some of its supporters ascribe this identity to the medieval Principality of Moldavia. Others, in order to explain the current differences between Romanian-speaking inhabitants of the two banks of the Prut river, ascribe it to the long incorporation of Bessarabia in the Russian empire and the USSR. The opponents, on the contrary, claim that Moldovans and Romanians are a single ethnic group and that the Moldovan identity was created by the Soviet Union.

Moldovenists claim that the people of Moldavia historically self-identified as "Moldavian" before the notion of "Romanian" became widespread. The notion that the Romanians and Moldovans in Bessarabia and the Moldavian ASSR (MASSR) formed two separate ethnonational groups, speaking different languages and possessing separate historical, cultural, and even biological traits was endorsed by the Soviet Union, and was used by it as an argument to support its territorial claim to the Romanian-administered Bessarabia during the interwar period.