Contested Borderland

Andrei Cusco is Director of the Center for Empire Studies at the Department of History and Philosophy within Moldova State University.

• IntroductionBessarabia—A Contested Borderland of the Russian EmpireConceptual Framework and Historiographical OverviewChronological and Thematic Structure of the BookChapter I. Empire- and Nation-Building in Russia and Romania: Discourses and Practices1. The Russian Empire and the Challenge of Multiethnicity: Managing the Periphery2. Constructing the National Narrative in Romania: Models and Variations3. Russian Imperial Visions and Policies in Bessarabia between the 1860s and World War IChapter II. Southern Bessarabia as an Imperial Borderland: Diplomatic and Political Dilemmas1. The Russian-Romanian 1878 Controversy: Between Realpolitik and National Dignity2. Southern Bessarabia in Russian Imperial Discourse after 1878: Visions of Otherness and Institutional TransfersChapter III. Rituals of Nation and Empire in Early Twentieth-Century Bessarabia: The Anniversary of 1912 and its Significance1. The 1912 Anniversary and the Early Twentieth-Century Russian Imperial Context2. The 1912 Anniversary and Bessarabia’s Public Sphere3. Russian-Romanian Symbolic Competition and the “Romanian Response”4. Romanian National Discourse on Bessarabia during the 1912 CelebrationsChapter IV. Three Hypostases of the “Bessarabian Refugee”: Hasdeu, Stere, Moruzi, and the Uncertainty of Identity1. Hasdeu—The Romantic Nationalist2. Moruzi—The Uprooted Traditionalist3. Stere—The Legal RevolutionaryChapter V. Revolution, War, and the “Bessarabian Question”: Russian and Romanian Perspectives (1905–1916)1. Bessarabia as a Contested Borderland during Revolution and War (1905–15)2. The Wartime “Nationalization” of the Russian Empire and its Significance3. The Controversy over the “Bessarabian Question” in the Romanian Kingdom (1914–16)ConclusionInstead of an Epilogue: Autonomy, Federalism, or National Unification (1917–18)?BibliographyIndex

"Andrei Cusco’s book provides the background to understanding the rival territorial claims made by Romania and the Soviet Union with regard to Bessarabia in the interwar era (the so-called “Bessarabian question”). In so doing, the book also provides the historical context for the competing claims of the Soviet Union/Russia and Romania in Moldova in more recent decades. This is a thorough work that draws upon unpublished documents from the Russian State Historical Archive, the Archive of the Foreign Policy of the Russian Empire, the State Archive of the Russian Federation, and the National Archive of the Republic of Moldova. As the writing is quite dense in places, it is a work that will appeal to those with some prior knowledge of the history of Bessarabia and is a useful addition to the available works in English on this contested borderland."