The Moldavian SSR was initially established as the Moldavian ASSR within the Ukrainian SSR on Oct. 12, 1924. On Aug. 2, 1940, after the reunification of Bessarabia with the USSR, the country was reorganized as the Moldavian Union Republic. Situated in the extreme southwestern European part of the USSR, it is bounded on the west by the Socialist Republic of Rumania and on the northeast and south by the Ukrainian SSR. It has an area of 33,700 sq km and a population of 3,773,000 (as of Jan. 1, 1974). The capital is Kishinev. The republic has 33 raions, 20 cities, and 34 urban-type settlements.

The Moldavian SSR is a socialist state of workers and peasants and a Union soviet socialist republic within the USSR. The existing constitution was adopted at the first session of the republic’s Supreme Soviet on Feb. 10, 1941. The highest organ of state power is the unicameral Supreme Soviet of the Moldavian SSR, elected for a four-year term on the basis of one deputy for every 11,000 inhabitants. Between sessions of the Supreme Soviet the highest organ of state power is the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Moldavian SSR. The Supreme Soviet forms the republic’s government—the Council of Ministers—and adopts laws for the Moldavian SSR. Local governmental organs in the raions, cities, villages, and settlements are the corresponding councils of workers’ deputies, popularly elected for two-year terms. In the Council of Nationalities of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, the Moldavian SSR is represented by 32 deputies.

The highest judicial organ of Moldavia is the republic’s Supreme Court, elected by the Supreme Soviet of the Moldavian SSR for a five-year term. It operates through two judicial boards (for civil and criminal cases) and a plenum. In addition, there is the Presidium of the Supreme Court. The procurator of the Moldavian SSR is appointed by the general procurator of the USSR for a five-year term.

Moldavia is located in the southwestern part of the Eastern European Plain, primarily occupying the region between the Dnestr and Prut rivers.

Terrain. Moldavia’s terrain is a hilly plain dissected by deep river valleys and ravines. In the center of the republic are the Central Moldavian Uplands, or Kodry, rising to 429 m on Mount Balaneshty. Stretching along the right bank of the Dnestr are the Dnestr Uplands, with elevations ranging from 250 to 300 m (the highest point is 347 m). Whereas the western part of the Dnestr Uplands has gentle slopes, the eastern part descends sharply toward the Dnestr. In the northern part of the republic lies the Northern Moldavian Plain with elevations ranging from 250 m to 300 m, intersected by broad, flat valleys. A narrow belt along the Dnestr’s left bank forms the edge of the Podolian Uplands. Southern Moldavia is occupied by the Southern Moldavian Plain, broken by numerous gullies and ravines and gradually giving way to the Black Sea Lowland.

Geological structure and minerals. Moldavia occupies the southwestern edge of the Eastern European Platform. In the south, in Kagul and Vulkaneshty raions, there is an area with a Hercynian folded foundation, the Scythian Platform. At the juncture of these platforms lies the Jurassic Moldavian Depression. The crystalline foundation, composed of granites, char-nockites, and migmatites of the Archean and Lower Proterozoic, outcrops only in the north (the village of Kosoutsy, Soroki Raion), descending in a southwesterly direction to a depth of 2,000 m (at Mount Komrat) and 3,000–6,000 m (south of Mount Chadyr-Lunga). Covering the crystalline foundation is a layer of sedimentary rock up to 6,000 m thick, composed of sandstones, clays, and limestones, as well as gypsum-anhydrite, siliceous, and other formations of the Upper Proterozoic, Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic. There are deposits of limestones (Saratseia, Erzhovo), gypsum (Kriva), clays, glass sands, gravel, and petroleum and natural gas (in the Kagul and Vulkaneshty raions).

Climate. Moldavia’s climate is moderately continental; winters are short and mild with little snow, and summers are long and hot. The average July temperature is 19.5°C in the north and 22°C in the south, with a maximum of 41°C. Average January temperatures are − 5°C and − 3°C, respectively, with an absolute minimum of − 36°C. There are frequent thaws in winter. Annual precipitation ranges from 560 mm in the north to 370 mm in the southwest; the uplands receive 500–560 mm, and the plains, 450–400 mm or less. Most of the rainfall occurs in the form of heavy showers accompanied by thunder and lightning. The maximum growing season is 200 days, and the prevailing winds are from the northwest.

Rivers and lakes. The rivers, flowing for the most part from the northwest to the southeast, belong to the Black Sea basin. The largest river is the Dnestr, flowing for 657 km within Moldavia. Its principal tributaries are the Reut, Byk, and Botna; 56 percent of Moldavia’s territory lies in the Dnestr basin. The second-largest river is the Prut, which flows for 695 km within Moldavia and forms the republic’s western border. The Prut’s main tributaries are the Chugur, Kamenka, Larga, Lapushna, and Sarata. The rivers are fed by rain and snow, with rain predominating. As a result of frequent thaws there are several periods of ice flow in the course of a winter. The regimens of the interior rivers differ considerably from those of the Dnestr and Prut. All the interior rivers have less water, becoming very shallow in summer, and most of them dry up periodically. The Dnestr and Prut valleys have many bottomland lakes, of which the largest are Beleu, Drachele, Rotunda, and Ruptura. Fifty-three reservoirs have been constructed on rivers and temporary streams, of which the most important are the Dubossary, Gidigich, Kosteshty, and Kangaz reservoirs. There are more than 1,500 ponds, covering about 20,300 hectares, used for irrigation and fishing. There is navigation along the Dnestr and Prut (as far as Leovo).

Soil. Chernozems cover 75 percent of the republic’s area, and brown and gray forest soils, about 10 percent. The floodplains have alluvial-meadow soils. In the north, chiefly in low-lying areas, typical chernozems predominate, and leached chernozems occur in the higher areas. The Kodry region has brown and gray forest soils. South of the Kodry, as well as in the central part of the left-bank Dnestr region, there are ordinary chernozems and large pockets of calcareous chernozems.

Flora. Moldavia lies in the steppe and forest-steppe zones. Most of its territory has been plowed up, with forests covering only 8 percent of the total area. About two-thirds of the forested area consists of oak plantings; other common species include ash, hornbeam, beech, and linden. The most important forest tracts have been preserved in the uplands in the central part of the republic. The high hills of the Central Moldavian Uplands are covered with oak-hornbeam, linden-ash, and oak-beech forests. In the northern forest-steppe region there are many groves of durmast oak, and in the extreme north groves of English oak. Pubescent oak grows chiefly south of the Kodry, in the foreststeppe zone. In the Dnestr and Prut valleys there are marshy forests of poplar, willow, elm, oak, and other species. Steppe vegetation (feather grass, fescue, and beard grass) has been preserved only in small areas. Meadows occur in the floodplains of the Dnestr, Prut, and Reut.

Fauna. The forests are inhabited by roe deer, wild boars, wolves, foxes, badgers, weasels, and ermine. There are more than 70 species of birds, including wood larks, jays, song thrushes, blackbirds, hawks, and long-eared owls. Griffon and black vultures are also encountered. Numerous rodents live in the steppe, including European and spotted susliks, hamsters, moles, polecats, field mice, and harvest mice. Among steppe birds are the steppe eagle, quail, and Hungarian partridge. In the bottomlands of the Prut and Dnestr are found boars, wildcats, muskrats, and such birds as the greylag, snipe, coot, mallard, pintail, pochard, gadwall, and spoonbill. Whooper and mute swans and roseate and Dalmatian pelicans sometimes nest in the lower reaches of the Prut. Red deer have been reacclimatized, and fallow deer, spotted deer, raccoon dogs, and pheasants have been introduced. In the natural and artificial bodies of water the main species of fish are carp, bream, pike, and perch; the domesticated carp, silver carp, and grasscarp are commercially important.

Preserves. In accordance with the law on the protection of the environment adopted by the Supreme Soviet of the Moldavian SSR in 1959, measures are being taken to make full use of the republic’s natural resources. The Kodry Preserve, covering 2,700 hectares, was created in 1971 to protect scenic landscapes in central Moldavia. Six scenic areas, 17 geological and paleonto-logical sites, 16 parks, and rare animal and plant species have been placed under state protection. Measures have also been taken to combat erosion and landslides, the silting up of rivers and lakes, and drought and hail.

Natural regions. In the northern Moldavian forest-steppe region, covering 43.3 percent of the republic’s area, the uplands have a forest-steppe landscape, and the plains, a steppe landscape. The soils are gray forest and chernozems. The central Moldavian forest region, or the Kodry, is the highest part of Moldavia and occupies 14.5 percent of the territory. The cuesta terrain of the northern Kodry differs from that of the southern Kodry, characterized by ridges. The region supports oak and hornbeam forests growing on gray forests soils. The southern Moldavian steppe region, covering 42.2 percent of the republic’s area, lies south of the Kodry between the Dnestr and Prut rivers and consists almost entirely of farmland. Steppe vegetation has been preserved here only in small areas.

REFERENCES

V. E. PROKA

The bulk of the population is made up of Moldavians, numbering 2,304,000 persons in 1970 (census). Other groups include Ukrainians (507,000; 1970 census), Russians (414,000), Gagauz (125,000), Jews (98,000), Bulgarians (74,000), and Byelorussians (10,000).

In the Soviet period Moldavia’s population growth rate has exceeded the average population growth rate of the Soviet Union as a whole (see Table 1). This may be explained by the fact that Moldavia has a higher rate of natural population increase than the USSR as a whole and by migration. Moldavia has the highest average population density of any Union republic (110.4 persons per sq km). The most thickly populated areas are the central regions, where the density reaches 148 per sq km, and the northern and southeastern regions, and the lowest density occurs in the southern regions, with a density of 60–70 persons per sq km. Women constitute 53.2 percent and men 46.8 percent of the population (as of 1973).

Industry employs 26 percent of all workers and office personnel; agriculture and lumbering, 19 percent; transportation and

communications, 9.4 percent; construction, 10 percent; commerce, 9.5 percent; health services, 5.8 percent; and education, 11.3 percent. In 1973 women accounted for 51 percent of the total work force, 52 percent of the industrial workers, 78 percent of the personnel in health services, physical education, and social services, and 71 percent of the personnel in education and cultural affairs. The creation of a socialist industry has ensured a rapid growth of the urban population.

In 1973 the most important cities were Kishinev (415,400), Tiraspol’ (121,600), and Bel’tsy (111,800). In the Soviet period the cities of Rybnitsa, Dubossary, Ungeny, Edintsy, Floreshty, Komrat, and Chadyr-Lunga have developed out of villages and small towns.

Primitive communal system and tribal confederations (to the sixth century A.D.). The territory of Moldavia was first settled in the Lower Paleolithic, as shown by the remains excavated in a cave at Starye Duruitory and Vykhvatintsy grotto. Sites from the Upper Paleolithic include Brynzeny, Rashkov, and Chutuleshty. During the Upper Paleolithic the clan social system evolved. The Mesolithic is represented by sites near the villages of Frumushika and Sarateny. The oldest Neolithic settlements belong to the Bug-Dnestr culture dating from the sixth and fifth millennia B.C., for example, the site near Mount Soroki. The inhabitants engaged in hunting, fishing, and land cultivation and used bows and arrows tipped with stone. During the fifth millennium B.C., tribes of the linear pottery culture migrated to the area from the northwest, and in the fourth millennium tribes of the Boian culture appeared here from the south.

In the fourth millennium B.C., the Boian culture was replaced by the Tripol’le culture, represented by settlements near the villages of Vavarovka, Starye Karakushany, and Kuban’ and by burial grounds near the village of Vykhvatintsy. The peoples of the Tripol’e culture used implements of flint, horn, and bone and articles made of native copper. Their ceramic articles—painted vessels of various shapes and figurines of people and animals— were of a high quality. The painting of vessels and the fashioning of clay figurines evidently had a religious significance. During the third millennium B.C., the Tripol’e culture extended from the Dnieper to the Carpathians. The Bronze Age culture that superseded the Tripol’e culture is represented by sites and burial grounds belonging to nomadic herders (burials of the pit culture). The Noua culture spread throughout the region. Its bearers were herdsmen who also practiced agriculture, as revealed by the ash pits discovered near the villages of Gindeshty, Tudorovo, and Oloneshty.

The Iron Age began at the end of the second millennium. In the fourth and third centuries B.C., Moldavia was the eastern limit of the area inhabited by Thracians, both Getae and Dacians. Getic fortified and unfortified towns have been excavated at Butucheny and Sakharna. The Getae maintained ties with the Greek Black Sea colonies, as shown by coins from Tyras (modern Belgorod-Dnestrovskii) and by Greek clay amphorae. The first tribal confederations—the Bastarnae alliance and the early slaveholding state formed by Burebistas—emerged in the second and first centuries B.C.

In A.D. 57 the Romans occupied Tyras, and Trajan’s Wall, extending from the Dnestr to the Prut, may have been built at that time. During the campaigns of the emperor Trajan in 101–102 and 105–106, Dacia was conquered and turned into a Roman province. The region underwent intensive Romanization. Latin was widely spoken, becoming the basis for the Eastern Romance languages, including Moldavian. The territory of the present-day Moldavian SSR was not part of Roman Dacia. From the second to the fourth century A.D. it was inhabited by tribes of the Cherniakhov culture, probably Sarmatians, GetaeDacians, Scythians, Slavs, and Goths. Remains from this culture have been unearthed at the settlements of Lukashevka, Delakeu, and Malaeshty and at the burial site near the village of Budeshty. These tribes were strongly influenced by Roman culture and attained a fairly high degree of social stratification.

Of great importance in the region’s history was the migration of peoples during the third and subsequent centuries. During the sixth and seventh centuries the Slavs settled the Danube region, the Balkan Peninsula, and the area between the Prut and Dnestr rivers (the settlements of Khanska and Alchedar). From the ninth to the 12th century the territory between the Prut and the Dnestr was inhabited by the Ulichi and Tivertsy tribes. South of the interfluve were settlements of Slavic tribes belonging to the Balkan-Danubian culture, which had spread over the territory of present-day Bulgaria and part of Rumania. The most important settlements were Kalfa, Petrukha, and Limbar’.

Development of feudal relations (sixth to 18th centuries). Feudal relations began to evolve on the territory of the future Moldavian Principality when it was still inhabited by the Slavic Antes and Sclavenians. By the ninth century the patriarchal-clan system had largely disintegrated and feudal relations were developing. During the ninth century fortified settlements arose at Ekimautsy and elsewhere. Between the tenth and the 12th centuries parts of Moldavia temporarily entered the sphere of influence of the ancient Russian state. As a result of invasions by the nomadic Pechenegs and Polovtsy in the tenth through 12th centuries, the Slavic population almost entirely disappeared. Early feudal states arose here, known as the Berlad Land (12th century) and the land of the Brodniks (12th and 13th centuries). In the mid-13th century and the first half of the 14th century Moldavia was ruled by the Mongol-Tatars. The remains of cities dating from the time of the Golden Horde have been excavated near the villages of Trebuzheny and Kosteshty.

Feudal classes and large-scale landownership developed among the Walachians between the 12th and 14th centuries. After driving the Mongol-Tatars out of the Moldova Valley in the first half of the 14th century, Hungarian feudal lords gained control over the area. The feudal system that evolved in Moldavia preserved certain Slavic characteristics, for example, the names of social groups and offices. After a war of liberation against the Hungarian king, led by the Walachian Bogdan, voevoda (military governor) of Maramureş, an independent Moldavian principality was established in 1359. By the end of the 14th century the principality stretched from the Carpathians to the Dnestr. Its inhabitants were engaged primarily in raising livestock but also practiced agriculture. Centers of trade and crafts arose, such as the cities of Suceava, Baia, Jassy (Iaşi), Belgorod, Tighina, and Orhei. The state was headed by a hospodar. The ruling class consisted of the “great” and “small” boyars, and ecclesiastical feudal lords also played an important role.

In the 16th century most communal peasants became subject to feudal lords, forming a category of feudally dependent persons known as vechins. The 16th century also saw an increase in the number of rezeshi (zăreşi), hereditary owners of small demesnes who lived communally. In the 17th and 18th centuries they were gradually forced into the peasantry. A large number of peasants were enserfed. The enserfment of the peasantry was reflected in legislation enacted by the Moldavian hospodars S. Tomash (Tomaş) (1622) and M. Barnovskii (Barnovschi) (1628). Serfdom was given legal force in the Code of Vasilii Lupu (1646). The peasants resisted the growing feudal oppression by all possible means; uprisings broke out in 1490–92, 1563, 1581, and 1671–72. One of the forms of the class struggle was the haiduk movement. Relying on the support of the masses, the haiduks operated in separate, uncoordinated detachments, attacking the estates of boyars and officials. The detachments of the haiduks Jonas Raju, Dmitru Popojia, and Detinka became famous in the 16th and 17th centuries. The class struggle was also manifested in heretical movements. During the 15th and 16th centuries the feudal lords resisted Hussite teachings, which had attracted many followers.

Moldavia fought wars against the Turks, Tatars, Poles, and Hungarians. In 1456 it first paid tribute to Turkey. Under the hospodar Stephen III the Great (1457–1504), Moldavia waged a fierce struggle against Turkish aggression. Moldavian troops routed the Turks at Vaslui in 1475 and in other battles, but about 1487 Stephen III, finding himself in difficulties, was obliged to conclude a peace with Turkey and to resume payment of tribute. During these years Stephen III entered into a military-political alliance with the Muscovite Grand Prince Ivan III Vasil’evich to counter the aggression of the Polish feudal lords. The alliance was bolstered by the marriage of Stephen Ill’s daughter Elena to Ivan Ill’s son Ivan. The intervention of the Muscovite prince helped the Moldavians defeat the army of the Polish king Jan Olbracht in the Koz’min forest in 1497.

In the early 16th century Moldavia came under greater Turkish control. Although Moldavia preserved its autonomy in domestic affairs, the hospodar was appointed by the sultan. For more than 300 years Moldavia paid the Turks a heavy tribute in money and foodstuffs and contributed armed detachments when requested by the Turks. At same time Moldavia suffered devastating attacks by the Crimean Tatars and was ravaged by the Turkish armies crossing its territory during Turkey’s wars against Poland, Russia, and Austria. During the years of Turkish oppression Belgorod-Dnestrovsk, Bendery, and Kiliia and its environs, as well as Khotin during the 18th century, were detached from Moldavia and made Turkish raias, in which Turkish garrisons were stationed. The southern part of the Prut-Dnestr interfluve (Budzhak) was given to the Tatars.

Turkish oppression considerably influenced social relations in Moldavia. The payment of tribute, collected as centralized state taxes, caused the vechins’ obligations to the state to greatly exceed those owed to the feudal lords. The 1749 Law Code of the hospodar K. Mavrokordatos abolished the category of vechins. Former vechins gained a limited right to leave the feudal lords, but they were bound to their place of residence, where they paid taxes. They began to be called tsarans Qarani).

The national liberation struggle against foreign oppression took various forms. In 1574 a war of liberation broke out under the leadership of the hospodar John the Terrible (1571–74), who allied himself with the Ukrainian cossacks. But he was betrayed by the Moldavian boyars, and the Turks crushed the uprising. Because the hospodar and the boyars were puppets of Turkey, the peasants and the urban poor constituted the backbone of the national liberation struggle, which merged with the social struggle against the feudal lords. During the 16th and 17th centuries Ukrainian cossacks, allies of the Moldavians in their struggle against the Turks, frequently attacked the Turkish garrisons at Bendery, Belgorod, and Kiliia. The most important campaigns were those of 1577–78 under the leadership of I. Podkova and the attacks led by G. Loboda and S. Nalivaiko in the late 16th century. Many Moldavian peasants fled to the Ukraine and became cossacks. In Bogdan Khmel’nitskii’s army they formed separate detachments. Moldavia sought an alliance with Poland, but from the mid-17th century, when Poland had grown weaker and Russia stronger, Moldavia on several occasions (1656, 1674, 1683) requested Moscow to assume suzerainty over it, thereby delivering it from Turkish oppression.

In 1711, at the outbreak of the Russo-Turkish War, the hospodar D. Kantemir (Cantemir) concluded the Treaty of Lutsk with Peter I, placing Moldavia under Russian sovereignty. The Russian Army was enthusiastically welcomed, but after the battle of Stănileşti in 1711 it was forced to leave Moldavia, and Turkish authority was restored. After the war the Turkish sultans appointed Greek Phanariots as hospodars of Moldavia. The Phanariots gradually came to occupy all high state and church posts and became known as corrupt and cruel rulers.

During the Russo-Turkish wars of the 18th century Russian troops liberated Moldavia three times, in 1739, 1770–74, and 1788–91. The Moldavian population greeted the Russians as liberators, and thousands of Moldavian volunteers fought in the ranks of the Russian Army. However, because of the opposition of other European states, primarily Austria, Moldavia was returned to Turkey under the terms of the peace treaties. By the Treaty of Kuchuk Kainarji (1774), Russia withdrew its troops from Moldavia, and Austria annexed part of the principality, the region known as Bukovina, with the exception of Khotin. Turkey promised to reduce its tribute, to offer amnesty to Moldavians who had fought with the Russians against the Turks, and to grant a number of other privileges. The treaty marked the beginning of the weakening of Turkish rule. By the Peace of Jassy (1791) part of left-bank Moldavia passed to Russia, and another portion was incorporated by Russia in the second partition of Poland in 1793—lands inhabited by Moldavians since the 17th century.

Annexation of Bessarabia by Russia; development of capitalist relations. Under the Bucharest Peace Treaty of 1812, which ended the Russo-Turkish War of 1806–12, Turkey ceded to Russia eastern Moldavia, the region between the Prut and Dnestr rivers known as Bessarabia, which became a province in 1873. Bessarabia was the most desolate part of Moldavia, occupying about 50 percent of Moldavia’s territory with only about 25 percent of its population. As part of Russia, no longer subject to’Tatar raids and the devastating campaigns of Turkish armies, the region developed rapidly. The population increased from 240,000 in 1812 to 1,935,500 in 1897, owing to a rapid increase in the native population and to the influx of foreign and Russian colonists. In 1812 southern Bessarabia, hitherto under the direct control of Turkish pashas and Tatar khans, was very sparsely populated. After becoming part of the Russian empire, southern Bessarabia was settled by Bulgarians and Gagauz fleeing from Turkish reprisals, German colonists, Ukrainians, Russians, and Moldavian settlers from beyond the Prut and from central Bessarabia.

The Moldavian boyars, who were given equal status with the Russian gentry, carried out tsarist policies, and the working population therefore suffered from both the social oppression of the Moldavian boyars and the reactionary tsarist policies. The peasants (tsarans} were considered to be personally free, but since they lived on land belonging to landowners they had to perform various services, which frequently led to sharp conflicts. To alleviate the social contradictions, the government promulgated the Statute on Tsarans in 1834, providing for written agreements between tsarans and landowners. In 1846 the Model Contract was issued, establishing obligatory terms should the tsarans and landowners fail to reach an agreement.

Peasant reforms were carried out in Bessarabia between 1861 and 1875. The reforms relating to the tsarans, who constituted 58.6 percent of the total population, went into effect in 1868. They were given the poorest farmland and lost the best hayfields and pastures. Such feudal vestiges as corvée persisted. State peasants and colonists, comprising 9.7 and 12 percent of the rural population, respectively, obtained land on more favorable terms in 1869 and 1871. The worst conditions of land tenure were imposed in 1875 on the tsarans living on rezeshi demesnes and small estates. The small size of the land allotments and onerous purchase payments intensified the class struggle in the villages. Between 1869 and 1872 there were more than 80 peasant disturbances, of which 41 had to be quelled by troops.

As throughout Russia, the peasant reforms in Bessarabia stimulated the development of capitalist relations and stratification among the peasantry. By the end of the 19th century the agricultural proletariat accounted for about 20 percent of the total village population. A large kulak stratum developed. V. I. Lenin classified Bessarabia among the regions of commercial agriculture (Poln. sobr. soch., 5th ed., vol. 3, pp. 196, 200). Developing as an agricultural region, Bessarabia supplied Russian and foreign markets with wine, fruit, wool, tobacco, and grain. Industry was not well developed, consisting chiefly of small-scale enterprises processing farm products. Such cities as Kishinev, Bel’tsy, and Izmail became trade centers. A proletariat and a multinational bourgeoisie emerged in the post-reform period.

The development of Moldavian society was influenced by progressive Russian sociopolitical thought. The revolutionary movement, rooted in local social contradictions, developed as part of the general Russian revolutionary movement. The Decembrist societies known as the Union of Welfare and the Southern Society functioned in Kishinev in the early 19th century. The Decembrist P. I. Pestel’ visited the city on several occasions, and A. S. Pushkin lived in exile in Kishinev from 1820 to 1823.

During the mid-1870’s the first Narodnik (Populist) groups were organized in Moldavia, headed by N. Codreanu, F. Denish, and D. Frunze. Many Moldavians, notably V. Vărzar, L. Dicescul, and Z. Ralli (Arbore), were active in the Russian Narodnik movement. After emigrating from Moldavia, Codreanu disseminated socialist ideas in Rumania. In the late 1890’s Marxism spread, and the Social Democratic movement arose (see below: Communist Party of Moldavia). The founders of the first workers’ and Social Democratic groups in Moldavia were Russian revolutionaries exiled from Russian industrial centers (la. E. Bograd, M. M. Godlevskii). Two trends appeared in the Moldavian national movement, the revolutionary-democratic and the bourgeois-nationalist. Culturally, Moldavia was a backward corner of tsarist Russia: at the end of the 19th century 90 percent of the Moldavians were illiterate.

The period of imperialism and bourgeois-democratic revolutions in Russia (1900–17). In the early 20th century about 85 percent of the Moldavian population was engaged in agriculture, and 40 percent of the agricultural land was owned by landlords, monasteries, and churches. Of the 430,000 peasant households, 23 percent were landless and 57 percent owned small plots of land. Moldavia’s importance within Russia as a producer and exporter of grain, grapes, and fruit grew. The export of grain through Odessa, the Danubian ports, and border railroad stations reached 75 million poods annually (1 pood = 16.38 kg), or 60 percent of the total harvest. Annual wine exports totaled 3 million vedros (1 vedro = 3.25 US gallons). Industry was poorly developed and consisted chiefly of food-processing and light industries. In 1913 there were 3,270 industrial enterprises (flour mills, wineries), employing 18,000 workers; most of the enterprises were cottage industries. A Moldavian bourgeoisie, chiefly agrarian, developed, and a national working class emerged, consisting largely of railroad workers. The developed capitalist system and the accompanying social and cultural changes facilitated the consolidation of the Moldavian people into a nation in the early 20th century.

The class struggle in Moldavia was linked with the Russian revolutionary movement as a whole. Between 1901 and 1903 approximately 20 strikes occurred, primarily economic, and between 1900 and 1904 there were 17 peasant disturbances. In 1905, at the outbreak of the bourgeois-democratic revolution in Russia, numerous political rallies were held throughout Moldavia, and strikes occurred in Kishinev, Tiraspol’, Bel’tsy, and Bendery. On Aug. 22, 1905, the police fired on 3,000 demonstrators in Kishinev. During the All-Russian October Strike more than 10,000 persons took part in a demonstration in Kishinev on October 18. Trade unions were organized in the course of the revolution (see below: Trade unions). Between 1905 and 1907 disturbances broke out in more than 170 villages and were suppressed by troops. Moldavian bourgeois nationalists became more active. The years of the Stolypin reaction saw a decline in the mass movement. Such notorious members of the Black Hundreds as V. M. Purishkevich, P. N. Krupenskii, P. V. Sinadino, and P. A. Krushevan were deputies from Bessarabia to the State Duma. From late 1910 and especially from 1912 the revolutionary movement in Moldavia revived.

During World War I (1914–18) industrial and agricultural production was curtailed: the number of factories decreased by 35 percent, the number of industrial workers by 42 percent, the area sown to grain by 19 percent, and the grain harvest by 27 percent. With the establishment of the Rumanian Front in 1916, Moldavia became a battleground.

After the February Bourgeois-Democratic Revolution of 1917 dual power existed in Moldavia, as in the rest of Russia: provincial and district commissars of the bourgeois Provisional Government functioned alongside Soviets. Soviets were organized in Bendery on March 11 (24), in Tiraspol’ on March 12 (25), and in Kishinev on March 13 (26). Leadership in the Soviets was seized by the Mensheviks, Socialist Revolutionaries, and Bundists. The development of the revolution in Moldavia was complicated by the fact that the working class was numerically small and fragmented and by the organizational weakness of the Bolsheviks. The counterrevolutionary bourgeoisie attempted to use the nationalist movement in its own interests. Nevertheless the Bolshevization of the masses occurred, aided to a large extent by the revolutionary soldiers of the Rumanian Front.

In the period of peaceful revolutionary development prior to July 1917, the struggle intensified: strikes and political demonstrations occurred in the cities, and more than 150 peasant disturbances broke out in the villages. In September 1917 the Bessarabian provincial congress of Soviets of workers’ and soldiers’ deputies adopted resolutions calling for the abolition of large-scale landownership, a democratic peace, and the transfer of power to the Soviets. The congress reflected the peasantry’s shift to the left.

Meanwhile the counterrevolutionary forces were organizing. In October nationalists at the Military-Moldavian Congress adopted a resolution calling for the establishment of the Sfatul Tarei (Territorial Council) and for the autonomy of Bessarabia. The local counterrevolutionaries relied on the support of Moldavian nationalists, the commanders of the Rumanian Front, the counterrevolutionary Ukrainian Central Rada, and the Rumcherod (Executive Committee of the Soviets of Soldiers’, Sailors’, and Workers’ and Peasants’ Deputies of the Rumanian Front, Black Sea Front, and Odessa Military District), controlled by Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviks.

The Great October Socialist Revolution, the Civil War, and the Military Intervention (1917–20). The victory of the proletarian revolution in central Russia and the decrees of the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets gave impetus to the struggle for Soviet power in Moldavia. In November and December 1917 power passed into the hands of the Soviets in some cities and villages. The working peasantry carried out the decree on land without formal authorization. The revolutionary soldiers of the Rumanian Front played an important role in the struggle for Soviet power. On Dec. 2 (15), 1917, the leaders of the counterrevolutionary Sfatul Tarei proclaimed Moldavia a “people’s republic” and declared themselves the “supreme authority.” They turned for aid to the Western powers, which regarded Bessarabia as a base of operations in their struggle against the land of the Soviets. Supported by the Entente countries, troops of the Kingdom of Rumania invaded Bessarabia in December 1917.

On Dec. 16 (29), 1917, the Soviet government demanded that Rumania cease its hostile actions. To combat the counterrevolution, the Revolutionary Staff of Soviet All-Republic Troops of the Bessarabian Region was created in Kishinev on Dec. 24, 1917 (Jan. 6, 1918). On Dec. 28, 1917 (Jan. 10, 1918), the frontline section of Rumcherod, which by this time had gone over to the Bolsheviks, began operating in Kishinev. On Jan. 1 (14), 1918, Soviet power was established in Kishinev. In late December 1917 and early January 1918, Soviet power triumphed throughout almost all of Moldavia. A prominent role in this victory was played by E. M. Venediktov, G. I. Kotovskii, F. la. Levenzon, la. D. Meleshin, A. G. Paladii, I. A. Rozhkov, A. V. Khristev, and I. E. lakir.

In early January 1918 an echelon of former prisoners of war, organized with the help of the Central Rada, left Kiev for Kishinev in order to overthrow Soviet power. In Kishinev the detachment was disarmed by the revolutionary forces. Simultaneously, Rumanian troops attacked Moldavia. Fierce battles were fought near Bel’tsy, Bendery, and Vilkovo. On January 13 (26) the interventionists captured Kishinev, and by the middle of March they occupied all of Bessarabia, where the rule of the landowners and capitalists was restored. This was one of the first acts of foreign intervention against the land of the Soviets. On January 13 (26) the Soviet government broke off diplomatic relations with Rumania.

In February, after the defeat of the Central Rada, the Soviet government sent part of the Red Army to aid the working people of Moldavia, and the Rumanian government was compelled to begin negotiations. On Mar. 5–9, 1918, a Soviet-Rumanian agreement was concluded, under which the Rumanian royal government promised to withdraw its troops from Bessarabia within two months. Taking advantage of the intervention of Austro-German troops in the Ukraine, the Rumanian government violated its agreement with the RSFSR and annexed Bessarabia. Under the protection of the occupation forces the bourgeois nationalists induced the the Sfatul Tarei to pass a resolution on Nov. 27, 1918, uniting Bessarabia with Rumania.

In late November and early December 1918 the Ukrainian Directory established control over the left bank of the Dnestr. At the end of January 1919 left-bank Moldavia, including Tiraspol’, was captured by Entente forces, but during the spring of 1919 the Red Army, with the support of partisans, liberated the area. In May 1919 the Provisional Workers’ and Peasants’ Government of the Bessarabian Soviet Socialist Republic was formed in Tiraspol’, although much of the republic’s territory was occupied by Rumanian royalist troops. During the summer of 1919 left-bank Moldavia was again occupied by the counterrevolutionary troops of S. V. Petliura and A. I. Denikin. Thousands of Moldavians took part in the Civil War against the troops of the counterrevolutionaries and occupation forces. Among Moldavian Red Army commanders who distinguished themselves were G. I. Kotovskii, S. G. Lazo, A. S. Krusser, M. V. Molkochanov, and I. S. Niagu. In February 1920 Soviet power was firmly established in left-bank Moldavia, and in March and April elections to the local Soviets were held. The main part of Moldavia, Bessarabia, remained under Rumanian rule.

Building socialism (1920–40). After the Civil War the building of socialism began in the left-bank regions of Moldavia. In the course of carrying out Lenin’s nationalities policy, the Moldavian ASSR was formed on Oct. 12, 1924, out of a number of regions on the left bank of the Dnestr that were part of the Ukrainian SSR and had a Moldavian population. The capital was Balta until 1929, when it was moved to Tiraspol’. The First Congress of Soviets of the Moldavian ASSR, held in 1925, adopted a constitution for the republic and issued an appeal to the peoples of Moldavia with the slogan: “Long live liberated Soviet Bessarabia, reunited with the Moldavian ASSR!” The congress elected the Central Executive Committee of the Moldavian ASSR (with G. I. Staryi as chairman of the Presidium), which formed the republic’s Council of People’s Commissars (with A. I. Stroev as its chairman).

The socialist transformation of the economy and cultural development began in the Moldavian ASSR. Thanks to the aid of the other Soviet republics, Moldavia’s economy, destroyed during World War I (1914–18) and the Civil War and Military Intervention (1918–20), attained its prewar level by 1926–27. Industry accounted for 21 percent of Moldavia’s gross output in 1928. A mass kolkhoz movement began in 1929. By the end of 1937, 96.5 percent of the peasant farms had been merged to form kolkhozes, and the area planted to orchards and vineyards had increased, as had the harvest of the principal crops.

Under the prewar five-year plans (1929–40) old enterprises were modernized, and many new large and medium-sized enterprises were built, including canneries at Tiraspol’ and the village of Glinnoe. By 1939 there were 343 industrial enterprises and artels, employing 14,000 workers and office personnel, and the industrial output was 33 times that of 1913. The Ukraine and other Union republics rendered enormous assistance in the development of the economy.

A cultural revolution was carried out: illiteracy was basically eliminated, skilled workers were trained, and a national intelligentsia emerged. Higher educational institutions, scientific and cultural-educational organizations, a national theater, libraries, and clubs were established.

Bessarabia under the oppression of the Kingdom of Rumania (1918–40). After occupying Bessarabia in 1918, the Rumanian authorities restored the government of the landowners and capitalists. They introduced a military-police dictatorship and pursued a colonial policy in Bessarabia. By 1935 more than one-fourth of the manufacturing enterprises had closed down. Unemployment became chronic, causing mass emigration (more than 300,000 persons emigrated during the 1920’s and 1930’s). The removal of Bessarabia from the Russian market precipitated a long crisis in agriculture: between 1923 and 1936 the area devoted to orchards was reduced by 50 percent, the number of cattle by 44 percent, sheep and goats by 20 percent, and pigs by 35 percent. In 1921–23 the Rumanian authorities carried out “agrarian reforms,” under which the peasants lost the landowners’ lands they had received from the Soviet government in 1917. In the late 1930’s landowners and kulaks owned more than 40 percent of the farmland. The agricultural proletariat constituted about three-fourths of the peasantry. The difficult economic position was exacerbated by the harsh occupation regime and by police persecution.

The USSR never reconciled itself to the forcible seizure of the region and continued to seek a peaceful resolution to the Bessarabian question. In March and April 1924, at a Soviet-Rumanian conference in Vienna, the Soviet government proposed that the problem be resolved by a plebiscite, but the Rumanian royalist government refused to accept the proposal, and the talks were broken off. Led by the Communists, the working people waged a self-sacrificing struggle against the occupation forces: strikes and demonstrations took place; underground pamphlets and newspapers were issued; armed uprisings broke out, such as the Khotin Uprising in 1919, the Bendery Uprising in 1919, and the Tatarbunary Uprising in 1924. Revolutionary demonstrations occurred under the slogan “For reunification with the Soviet fatherland!” Political trials followed one after another; the most famous were the Trial of the 108, the Trial of the 270, the Trial of the 48, the Trial of the 500 (1925), and the Kishinev Trial of Antifascists (1936), at which the chief defendant was Professor P. Constantinescu-Iaşi. The guiding and directing force of the revolutionary struggle was the Communist Party, which operated underground in Bessarabia. Thousands of participants in the struggle perished in the torture chambers of the political police (siguranţa).

The liberation of Bessarabia and the formation of the Moldavian SSR. The outbreak of World War II (1939–45) and Rumania’s conversion to fascism created a situation that had grave consequences for the people of Bessarabia. Military preparations by Rumania’s ruling clique were accompanied by intensified social and national oppression. Bessarabia became a staging area for an attack on the Soviet Union. In a note dated June 26, 1940, the Soviet government proposed that the Rumanian government return Bessarabia, which it had taken by force. The demand was carried out. On June 28, 1940, Red Army units entered Bessarabia, and the toiling masses were able to overthrow the rule of the boyars, landowners, and bourgeoisie. Organs of the Soviet government were established, and bourgeois parties and organizations were dissolved. It became possible to reunite the Moldavian people and establish a Union republic.

On Aug. 2, 1940, the seventh session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR enacted a law providing for the formation of a Union-level Moldavian SSR, comprising the Grigoriopol’, Dubossary, Kamenka, Rybnitsa, Slobodzeia, and Tiraspol’ raions of the Moldavian ASSR and the Bel’tsy, Bendery, Kishinev, Kagul, Orgeev, and Soroki districts of Bessarabia. The remaining eight raions of the Moldavian ASSR and the Akkerman district and most of the Izmail and Khotin districts of Bessarabia, inhabited chiefly by Ukrainians, were incorporated into the Ukrainian SSR.

On Aug. 15, 1940, the Supreme Soviet of the USSR issued decrees reviving the Soviet laws on the nationalization of land, banks, railroads, river transportation, large and medium-sized industrial and commercial enterprises, and means of communication. Ownership of land by landlords was abolished, and the poor peasantry received about 230,000 hectares of arable land, orchards, vineyards, and livestock. By the end of 1940, 233 kolkhozes had been formed, and 34 machine and tractor stations had been established. The restoration of industry began, and unemployment was eliminated. A Soviet system of schools and cultural-educational institutions was organized. On Feb. 10, 1941, the Supreme Soviet of Moldavia adopted a constitution for the republic. The formation of the Moldavian SSR completed the creation of a Soviet state for the Moldavian people. Socialist transformations in the new regions were interrupted by the outbreak of war.

The Great Patriotic War (1941–45). From the first day of war the territory of Moldavia became a battleground. Some 300,000 inhabitants were evacuated from the republic to the interior of the USSR, and several thousand railroad cars of industrial and agricultural equipment and about 180,000 head of livestock were shipped out. After fierce battles Soviet troops abandoned Kishinev on July 16. The German and Rumanian fascists restored the rule of the landowners and capitalists, and a terrorist regime was established with the collaboration of the bourgeois nationalists. A popular movement developed in the occupied area. The population concealed grain and livestock from the enemy and wrecked equipment at enterprises. The partisan movement became important, especially in 1944. Moldavian partisan units also operated on Ukrainian territory. Underground patriotic groups created by the Communists issued pamphlets and engaged in sabotage. Hundreds of thousands of Moldavians fought in the ranks of the Soviet Army, of whom 85,000 were awarded orders and medals and 16 received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

The evacuated inhabitants of Moldavia, aided by the working people of the USSR’s eastern regions, took new jobs and acquired other specializations. They worked in factories and plants in the Urals, in Karaganda mines, and on kolkhozes and sovkhozes in Kazakhstan and Central Asia. In the spring of 1944 northern Moldavia and the left bank of the Dnestr were liberated. In August, as a result of the lasj-Kishinev Operation, the fascists were expelled from all of Moldavia, and Kishinev was liberated on August 24. During the occupation more than 64,000 Soviet citizens had been killed; 47,000 were forcibly taken to Germany; and 1,037 industrial enterprises and almost half the housing, schools, and cultural institutions were destroyed. The total damage inflicted on the Moldavian economy amounted to 11 billion rubles (in 1941 prices).

Building socialism. The republic at the stage of a well-developed socialist society. After the war the socialist transformations that had been interrupted by the war were carried out on a broad front. Within a short time the soviet, state, and economic machinery was restored. National party, soviet, and economic workers were trained in schools, higher educational institutions, and special courses. Specialists from the other Soviet republics assisted in the restoration and development of the economy. In building socialism the working people of Moldavia relied on the strong material and technical base of their fraternal republics, learning from the latter’s experience in building socialism. The five-year plan (1946–50) for restoring the national economy of the USSR became Moldavia’s plan for restoring its economy, for reconstructing its economy along socialist lines, and for collectivizing agriculture. By 1948, thanks to the efforts of the working class in Moldavia, the prewar level of industrial production was reached.

In February 1952 the government of the USSR adopted the decree On Measures for the Further Development of the Food Industry in the Moldavian SSR, defining the direction of the republic’s economic development—the creation of a large-scale food industry. Moldavia’s raw-material base was broadened: there was an increase in the area devoted to sugar beets, orchards, and vineyards. Between 1951 and 1958, 98 major state enterprises and many workshops were put into operation. As a result of carrying out socialist industrialization, Moldavia’s economic backwardness was overcome, and the material-technical base of socialism was created.

Under the first postwar five-year plan, the collectivization of agriculture was completed and sovkhozes were established. The state granted the republic’s kolkhozes large credits, hundreds of thousands of tons of fertilizer, and other aid. The socialist transformation of Moldavia’s agriculture was basically completed by the end of 1950. The kolkhoz system was established, and a new class was formed, the kolkhoz peasantry. The development of agriculture, as well as of Moldavia’s entire economy, has subsequently been determined by the general principles for the development of the Soviet Union’s agriculture. As a result of the radical transformation of the republic’s economy and culture, its backwardness in these spheres, inherited from tsarism and the 22-year rule of Rumanian occupation forces, was overcome. The working people of the republic under the leadership of the Communist Party built the foundations of socialism.

During the 1950’s and 1960’s significant changes occurred in the structure of industry. The food-processing industry developed, as well as machine building, metalworking, instrument-making, electric power engineering, and the production of various building materials. Moldavia’s working class, a major component of the USSR’s working class, developed. The number of workers in all branches of industry grew from 51,400 persons in 1950 to 293,000 in 1973. The differences between urban and rural life are being erased because mechanized agriculture is gradually coming to resemble industrial enterprises. A number of kolkhoz villages have become urban-type settlements, for example, the village of Kopanka in Bendery Raion, Parkany and Slobodzeia in Tiraspol’ Raion, and Larga in Brichany Raion. For its achievements in the development of agriculture Moldavia was awarded the Order of Lenin in 1958.

During the postwar building of socialism the prosperity of the working classes increased. A cultural revolution was successfully carried out, so that by the mid-1950’s illiteracy had been eliminated, and the general educational level of the population had been raised. Between 1959 and 1970 the number of persons with higher and secondary educations increased 1.8 times. An academy of sciences, new higher educational institutions, scientific and cultural-educational institutions, national theaters, libraries, and clubs were established. The class structure of society was altered. The number of skilled workers and kolkhoz peasants increased, and a national intelligentsia developed. The daily life of the common people also changed as religious and other vestiges of the past virtually disappeared. Party organizations accomplished an enormous task in fostering a communist world view among the masses. There was a flowering of the culture of the Moldavian people—national in form, socialist in content, and internationalist in spirit. Socialism was built in the republic. Moldavia has been transformed into a highly developed industrial-agrarian socialist republic. The Moldavian people have been consolidated into a socialist nation.

Under the conditions of a well-developed socialist society the working people of Moldavia, together with the peoples of the entire Soviet Union, are working to create the material and technical base of communism.

As of 1973, Moldavia had 170 Heroes of Socialist Labor. In commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of the USSR the Moldavian Republic was awarded the Order of Friendship Among Peoples in 1972.

SOURCES

REFERENCES

IA. S. GROSUL and N. A. MOKHOV

The Communist Party of Moldavia is an integral part of the CPSU. The first Social Democratic groups appeared in Moldavia at the turn of the 20th century. A committee of the RSDLP was formed in Kishinev at the end of 1902, as was announced in the 33rd issue of the newspaper Iskra. Among the committee’s members were V. G. Broaske, V. I. Dudavskii, and L. N. Nemoliakina. An important role in the creation of a Social Democratic organization was played by political exiles from the central industrial cities and by Iskra’s underground printing press in Kishinev, the first Iskra press in Russia, operating from April 1901 to March 1902. The Kishinev Committee of the RSDLP established contact with the editors of Iskra and with the Moscow, Kiev, Odessa, Nikolaevsk, Ekaterinoslav, and other organizations of the RSDLP, and it published leaflets. Within the region’s Social Democratic organizations an intense struggle broke out between revolutionary and opportunistic tendencies, between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks and Bundists. The Bolsheviks’ influence among the masses grew, particularly during the Revolution of 1905–07. In 1912 the Bolsheviks established a Pravda group in Kishinev. They collected money for the newspaper’s publication and organized its distribution.

After the February Revolution of 1917 the Moldavian Bolsheviks united with the Mensheviks, and in some areas even with Bundists of the RSDLP, and this retarded the liberation of the working classes from the influence of the compromisers and bourgeois nationalists. The Central Committee of the RSDLP (Bolshevik) helped the Bolsheviks of the region establish their own independent organizations. Bolshevik organizations, headed by la. Meleshin, A. Solov’ev, I. Ivolgin, I. Zhukovskii, and Volkov, were established at Kishinev, Tiraspol’, Bendery, Ungeny, and elsewhere between September and December 1917. The Conference of Bolshevik Organizations of the Rumanian Front, held on Nov. 28–30 (Dec. 11–13), 1917, in Kishinev, played an important part in setting up these organizations. The Bolshevik L. Tomakh was Moldavia’s delegate to the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets.

Soviet power was established in Moldavia in early 1918 after a fierce struggle against the counterrevolutionary Sfatul Tarei. Bolsheviks led the fight against Rumanian interventionists and domestic counterrevolutionaries, but the revolutionary detachments of workers and peasants could not hold out against these combined forces, and the Kingdom of Rumania seized Bessarabia at the beginning of 1918. After the occupation of Bessarabia and the establishment of a military-police regime by the Rumanian invaders, the region’s Communist organizations went underground. The Bessarabian Bolshevik Organization, formed in February 1919, was part of the RCP (Bolshevik) prior to 1922, and later temporarily joined the Rumanian Communist Party. Among the organization’s leaders were S. Burlachenko, lu. Ganev, I. Ignatov, A. Nikol’skii, N. Osipov, G. Poniatovskii, A. Poplavskii, S. Reveniale, M. Skvortsov, K. Syrbu, P. Tkachenko, I. Fortuna, and I. Shimkov.

In October 1924, after the creation of the Moldavian ASSR, the republic’s party organization was set up. The First AllMoldavian Oblast Party Conference, held Dec. 18–21, 1924, formed an oblast organization of the Communist Party (Bolshevik) of the Ukraine and elected the members of the organization’s directing organs. Under the leadership of the Central Committee of the ACP (Bolshevik) and the Central Committee of the CP (B) of the Ukraine, the party organization of the Moldavian ASSR organized the working people to implement the Leninist plan for building socialism. I. I. Badeev, E. P. Voronovich, N. I. Golub, L A. Grizo, and V. la. Kholostenko made a major contribution to the building of socialism.

In 1940, after the liberation of Bessarabia and the creation of the Moldavian SSR, the Central Committee of the ACP (B) on Aug. 14, 1940, transformed the Moldavian oblast party organization into the Communist Party (Bolshevik) of Moldavia, which headed the struggle by the republic’s working class for the consolidation and development of socialism in the former Moldavian ASSR and the building of socialism in the liberated areas. The programmatic document of the CP (B) of Moldavia was a decree issued by the Central Committee of the ACP (B) and the USSR Council of People’s Commissars on Aug. 21, 1940, called On Measures for Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina. The First Congress of the CP (B) of Moldavia, held on Feb. 6–8, 1941, in Kishinev, outlined a broad program of governmental, economic, and cultural development in the republic and elected the members of the directing organs of the CP (B) of Moldavia, including G. F. Antosiak, M. M. Bessonov. P. G. Borodin, F. G. Brovko, S. S. Zelenchuk, T. A. Konstantinov, N. L. Salogor, and N. Kh. Smoriga.

From the first days of the Great Patriotic War (194173x2013;45) the CP (B) of Moldavia organized and led the struggle of the republic’s working people against the fascist invaders. Thousands of Communists and Komsomol members joined the army, the Kishinev Communist Regiment, assault battalions, and the people’s militia. The Central Committee of the CP (B) of Moldavia and the Council of People’s Commissars of Moldavia organized the evacuation of industrial equipment, grain, livestock, raw material, and other valuable items into the interior of the USSR and made arrangements for the resettlement of hundreds of thousands of evacuees. The Central Committee of the CP (B) of Moldavia organized a partisan and underground patriotic movement in the rear of the enemy. In September 1941 an underground republic party center was established under the leadership of A. M. Tereshchenko. The secretary of the Central Committee of the CP (B) of Moldavia, I. I. Aleshin, the deputy chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars of the Moldavian SSR, G. la. Rud’, and other party and soviet functionaries were sent to lead the partisan movement in the occupied areas.

After the liberation of the republic in 1944, the CP (B) of Moldavia, aided by the Central Committee of the ACP(B), the Soviet government, and the fraternal republics, directed the efforts of the working people in restoring Moldavia’s economy, industrializing the republic, collectivizing agriculture in the right-bank areas, reestablishing or creating party organizations at industrial enterprises, construction sites, kolkhozes, machine and tractor stations, and sovkhozes, and strengthening party organizations and making them more effective. Of great importance for the solution of these problems were two decrees of the Central Committee of the ACP(B). The first decree was issued

on Oct. 4, 1948, on the basis of a report given by the Central Committee’s bureau for Moldavia, and the second decree, called On Shortcomings in the Work of the Central Committee of the CP(B) of Moldavia, was issued July 5, 1950.

Directed and aided by the Central Committee of the CPSU, the CP of Moldavia successfully carried out the postwar plans for developing Moldavia’s economy and transforming it into an industrial-agrarian republic with a well-developed socialist culture and high standard of living. The party organizations of Moldavia were active in the communist education of the working people. Thousands of progressive workers and kolkhoz peasants and the best representatives of the intelligentsia joined the party organizations, which combated bourgeois ideology and educated the working people in the spirit of socialist internationalism. The CP of Moldavia has concentrated on organizational and political work among the masses. It has improved the selection, placement, and education of personnel and has closely supervised the implementation of the resolutions of the Communist Party and the Soviet government. Within the framework of a well-developed socialist society the CP of Moldavia is mobilizing the republic’s working people to solve the problems of creating the material and technical base of communism. In 1973, Moldavia had 3,718 primary organizations and 40 raion and city committees. (See Table 2 for the congresses and membership of the CP of Moldavia.)

REFERENCES

S. IA. AFTENIUK

The Komsomol of Moldavia is an integral part of the Ail-Union Komsomol. The first revolutionary youth organizations in Moldavia were founded in 1917. In accordance with resolutions of the Sixth Congress of the RSDLP (Bolshevik), Leagues of Socialist Youth were formed in Kishinev, Kalarash, Komrat, Gancheshty, and other towns in September and October 1917. In the left-bank Dnestr region Komsomol organizations were established in early 1920 as part of the Komsomol of the Ukraine. The first issue of the newspaper Raboche-krest’ianskaia molodezh ’, the organ of the Tiraspol’ district and urban committees of the Communist League of Working Youth, was published on Mar. 28, 1920.

In the right-bank section of Moldavia, occupied by the Kingdom of Rumania, the first groups of socialist youth were organized secretly in the spring of 1918 in Kishinev, Bendery, Orgeev, Gancheshty, and other towns. In mid-December they were reorganized as the Komsomol; one of the principal Komsomol organizers in Bessarabia was P. Tkachenko. The Bessarabian Oblast Committee of the Komsomol was established in early 1920. Among prominent members of the Bessarabian Komsomol organizations were A. Onika, S. Bubnovskii, Kh. Livshits, A. Burlachenko, E. Syrbu, and A. Pelerie.

The First Komsomol Conference, held on Jan. 6–7, 1925, established the oblast Komsomol organization of the Moldavian ASSR. During the building of socialism the Moldavian Komsomol, under the leadership of the Communist Party, helped implement the plans for industrializing the country and collectivizing agriculture and was instrumental in carrying out the cultural revolution. It conducted intensive political and educational work among young people. After the creation of the Moldavian SSR in 1940 the oblast Komsomol organization became the Komsomol of Moldavia. Its organizational framework was established at the First Congress of the Komsomol of Moldavia, held on March 15–16, 1941. The Komsomol took part in implementing the socialist transformations in the republic’s right-bank regions.

At the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War (1941–45) thousands of Komsomol members joined the Red Army. They fought heroically in the underground and in partisan detachments against the fascist German-Rumanian invaders. B. Glavan was an active member of the underground Komsomol organization known as the Young Guard, which operated in Krasnodon. In battles on the way to Berlin the Komsomol I. Soltys repeated A. Matrosov’s heroic deed and was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

Under the postwar five-year plans the Komsomol of Moldavia took part in restoring and developing the republic’s economy and culture. Members of the Moldavian Komsomol also helped rebuild the industries of the Donets Coal Basin, the Dnieper Hydroelectric Power Plant, and Zaporozhstal’ and contributed to the development of virgin and fallow lands. Summer student groups from the republic’s higher educational institutions have undertaken a great variety of projects throughout the USSR. Within the framework of a well-developed socialist society the Komsomol members of Moldavia make important contributions and offer patriotic services. They are active in the struggle to increase production efficiency by speeding up technical progress and increasing labor productivity, by improving the quality of products, and by more efficient use of labor and material resources.

In 1973, 3,325 Komsomol members joined the CPSU, or 60.2 percent of the total number of persons admitted into the party that year. As of Jan. 1, 1974, the Komsomol of Moldavia had a membership of 454,000 (4,990 primary organizations), of whom 122,300 were workers.

Guided by the CP of Moldavia, the Komsomol is working to create the material and technical base of communism and is active in the communist education of the new generation. (See Table 3 for the congresses and membership of the Komsomol of Moldavia.)

REFERENCES

Moldavia’s trade unions are an integral part of the trade unions of the USSR. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries mutual aid funds and strike committees were established in Moldavia. The first trade union organizations, unions of shoemakers, bakers and confectioners, office workers in commerce and industry, railroad workers, and sailors, arose during the Revolution of 1905–07. In 1917 trade union organizations existed at many enterprises; incomplete data show that there were approximately 25 trade unions with a total membership of more than 10,000. The trade unions directed the economic struggle of workers and office employees, and from the autumn of 1917 they joined the struggle for Soviet power. In February 1925 the First All-Moldavian Congress of Trade Unions was held in Balta.

In Bessarabia, which was occupied by the Kingdom of Rumania, the capitalists created “yellow” trade unions to divide the workers; these unions came to be called Bivol unions after the man who organized them. To counter the legal, compromising unions, the Communists created revolutionary trade unions, which operated illegally. In 1920 the Communists began to use legal forms of struggle. They joined the reactionary trade unions, and after eliminating the antirevolutionary elements, they became the union leaders. In 1928 a Council of Trade Unions, or Komisiia Lokale, was founded in Kishinev, and the Committee of the Unemployed was very active. The trade unions led many workers’ strikes and political demonstrations. In 1929 the Rumanian police destroyed the trade union center known as the Workers’ House.

During the prewar five-year plans the trade unions of the Moldavian ASSR, under party leadership, mobilized the masses to implement the plan to industrialize the country and collectivize agriculture and to carry out the cultural revolution. They organized socialist emulation and did much to improve the living and working conditions of workers and office employees.

In 1940, after Moldavia was reunited, the republic’s trade unions merged to form trade unions encompassing branches of industry. In the postwar period Moldavia’s trade unions have been active in restoring the republic’s destroyed economy and in further developing its economy and culture. They have sought to improve the management of production and to increase labor productivity, and they have organized socialist emulation and the movement for a communist attitude toward work. The trade unions are concerned with improving the working and living conditions of workers, kolkhoz members, and office employees and with the observance of labor legislation. They have expanded their activity in all spheres of state and public life. As of January 1973, Moldavia’s 20 branch trade unions consisted of 7,409 primary organizations and had a total membership of more than 1,170,000, or 97.4 percent of the republic’s workers and office employees. On Jan. 1, 1973, the trade unions of Moldavia owned 118 clubs, 164 libraries, and 2,551 Red Corners, and they operated two sanatoriums, five houses of rest, 180 pioneer camps, and various tourist facilities in Moldavia.

REFERENCE

General characteristics. Today, Moldavia is an industrial-agrarian republic in which the processing industry predominates. Prior to the Great October Socialist Revolution it was a backward agricultural region with a poorly developed industry represented by small semi-cottage, chiefly food-processing enterprises. The building of large-scale enterprises and the transition to industrial methods in agriculture, accomplished with the fraternal assistance of the peoples of the USSR, as well as the flowering of science and culture, have brought about a radical change in Moldavia’s economy.

In 1972 industry accounted for 56.4 percent of the gross social product; construction, transportation, and communications, for 12.3 percent; and agriculture, for 25.3 percent. Within the socialist division of labor Moldavia is one of the USSR’s most important regions for growing grapes (contributing 23 percent of the all-Union grape harvest in 1973), fruits and berries (11 percent), corn (11.7 percent), sunflowers (5.7 percent), sugar beets (2.8 percent), and vegetables (3.5 percent). In 1972 the republic produced 9.1 percent of the USSR’s grape wine (excluding the wine produced by Moldavian enterprises in other republics), 9.4 percent of its canned goods, 5.2 percent of its vegetable oil, 3.6 percent of its granulated sugar, 7.4 percent of its washing machines, 3.8 percent of its refrigerators, 2.2 percent of its hosiery, 1.9 percent of its leather footwear, and 1.6 percent of its tractors. Moldavia ranks first among the Union republics in the production of cured tobacco and rose oil. Essential-oil crops and winter wheat are also important.

Moldavia’s economic development depends on the import of raw materials and finished products from the other Union republics. From the Ukraine, Moldavia receives coal, natural gas, cast iron, rolled ferrous metals, heavy steel, fertilizers, tractors, and combines for harvesting corn and sugar beets and other farm machinery. The central regions of the RSFSR supply Moldavia with machine tools, motor vehicles, excavators, cotton and woolen fabrics, fertilizers, and hides. From the Volga region Moldavia obtains petroleum products and motor vehicles; from the Northern Caucasus, grain-harvesting combines, steel pipes, and petroleum products; from the Urals, tractors and rolled ferrous metals; and from the Northwest, lumber and paper. The Baltic republics supply Moldavia with electrical products, radios, and canned fish, and Byelorussia sends heavy-duty trucks, tractors, ensilage-harvesting combines, motorcycles, and television sets. The Transcaucasian republics supply motor vehicles, electric motors, pipes, sprinkler systems, ditchers, and tea, and the Middle Asian republics and Kazakhstan furnish wool and cotton thread.

Moldavia in turn supplies the other Union republics with fruit, grapes, canned goods, wine, sugar, cured tobacco, sunflower oil, essential oils, electric power, tractors for gardens and orchards, refrigerators, washing machines, oscillographs, defectoscopes, power transformers, centrifugal pumps, cable products, silk fabrics, and knitted goods. Moldavia’s industrial and agricultural products are exported to more than 50 foreign states, including countries of the socialist community and developed capitalist nations. Moldavia accounts for more than 80 percent of the wine products exported abroad by the USSR.

Along with the development of agricultural production and industries processing local agricultural raw materials, much progress has been noted in the labor-intensive branches of machine building and metalworking, particularly in the production of instruments and electrical equipment. Some branches of light industry have also been developed. A new type of agro-industrial enterprise, the sovkhoz plant, combining agricultural and industrial production, has played an important role in the industrialization of agriculture.

Industry. Moldavia’s gross industrial output increased 32 times between 1940 and 1973. In terms of value of gross output the food-processing industry holds first place; heavy industry, second place; and light industry, third place. As of Jan. 1, 1973, the branch structure of the fixed productive capital was as follows: electric power industry, 23.5 percent; machine building and metalworking, 13.7 percent; forestry, woodworking, and paper and pulp production, 3 percent; building-materials industry, 8.5 percent; light industry, 9.6 percent; and food industry, 36.7 percent. In addition to the further development of such traditional industries as wine-making, hulling and milling, vegetable-oil extraction, and tobacco curing, the years of Soviet power have seen the creation of an energy base and industries producing electrical equipment, instruments, and cement. (The growth rates of industrial output are shown in Table 4, and the increase in the output of various industrial products is reflected in Table 5.)

The electric power industry has developed rapidly. In 1973 the total capacity of electric power plants exceeded 2 million kW, as compared with 12,500 kW in 1940. Most of the electricity is produced by steam power plants using coal from the Donets coal basin. The largest electric power plant is the Moldavian State Regional Electric Power Plant in the settlement of Dnestrovsk, with a capacity of 1.8 million kW. Other major power plants are

the Kishinev Heat and Electric Power Plant, the Dubossary Hydroelectric Power Plant, and the Bel’tsy Heat and Electric Power Plant.

The principal industry is food processing, accounting for 50 percent of the value of the republic’s gross industrial output. The republic’s food industry processes all the sugar beets and sunflowers procured from state and collective farms, 96 percent of the tobacco and essential-oil crops, more than 90 percent of the grapes, 56 percent of the green vegetables, and about 50 percent of the fruit. The wine-making, fruit and vegetable canning, sugar-refining, oil-pressing, tobacco, and essential-oil industries are of nationwide importance. The output of the wine-making industry increased 24 times between 1940 and 1972. In addition to the production of grape wine and brandy, champagne production has also increased, totaling 2,418,000 bottles in 1972. Some wine produced in Moldavia (18.6 million decaliters in 1972) undergoes final processing and is bottled in plants in other Union republics. The largest wine-making enterprises are the Kishinev wine and brandy combine and champagne combine, the Kala-rash wine and brandy sovkhoz plant, the Rybnitsa wine combine, the Tiraspol’ and Bel’tsy wine and brandy plants, and the Chadyr-Lunga, Komrat, Floreshty, and Soroki wineries. The 13 territorial-production winegrowing associations established in 1971–72 include 114 specialized wine-making sovkhoz plants, producing more than 90 percent of the republic’s fine wines. Moldavian brandies and wines, famous throughout the USSR and abroad, have received more than 100 medals at international competitions.

The canning industry, comprising more than 20 plants, produces canned fruits and vegetables with more than 100 brand names. The principal canneries are concentrated in the Dnestr area (Tiraspol’, Bendery, Kaushany, Oloneshty, Krasnoe, Grigoriopol’, Kamenka), in central Moldavia (Kishinev, Kala-rash, Orgeev), and along the Prut (Kagul, Kantemir, Nisporeny, Ungeny, Kalininsk). The third most important branch of the food-processing industry—sugar refining—is located entirely in the northern part of the republic in Biruintsa, Frunze, Dondiushany, Drokiia, Bel’tsy, Kalininsk, Leninskii, Rybnitsa, and Faleshty. In 1972 the output of granulated sugar was 27 times that of 1940. The oil-pressing industry, producing more than 10.5 times as much vegetable oil as in 1940, is represented by the Bel’tsy Oil and Fat Combine, one of the largest in the USSR, and by the Ataki and Bendery oil-extraction plants. The tobacco industry, one of Moldavia’s oldest industries, is also expanding rapidly. The most important enterprises are the tobacco combine at Kishinev and tobacco-curing plants at Dubossary, Orgeev, Sholdaneshty, Floreshty, Drokiia, Kalininisk, and ChadyrLunga.

Moldavia is a major region for the production of valuable essential oils from roses, lavender, sage, and mint, which are used in the perfume, pharmaceutical, and confectionery indus-tries. Moldavia produces 24 percent of the USSR’s rose oil, 27 percent of its sage oil, and almost 27 percent of its lavender oil. Among other well-developed food industries are meat-packing (combines at Kishinev, Bel’tsy, Bendery, Tiraspol’, and ChadyrLunga), the production of confectionery and macaroni (Kishinev), butter- and cheese-making, and hulling and milling.

Machine-building and metalworking enterprises, most of them built during the 1960’s, manufacture tractors, farm machinery, centrifugal pumps, AC electric motors, refrigerators, washing machines, low-voltage electrical apparatus, casting machinery, transformers, woodworking machine tools, adding machines, electric heating apparatus, electrothermal equipment, and cable products. Machine-building and metalworking enterprises in Kishinev include the Moldavgidromash and Volna associations, tractor and refrigerator plants, Elektromashina,

Vibropribor, the 50th Anniversary of the USSR Adding Machine Factory, and Mikroprovod. The largest plants in Tiraspol’ are the S. M. Kirov Casting Machinery plant, Elektromash, electrical apparatus plants, and trailer plants. Bel’tsy has plants manufacturing farm machinery, electrical equipment, and lighting fixtures, and Bendery has the Moldavkabel’ Plant and an electrical apparatus factory. There is a pump plant in Rybnitsa, a woodworking machine-tool plant in Edintsy, and an electrothermal equipment plant in Chadyr-Lunga.

The chemical industry is represented by combines producing artificial leather and rubber goods and by several plants, including a tire-repair plant, a paint and varnish plant, and the Farmako plant in Kishinev; a chemical plant in Tiraspol’; and biochemical plants in Bel’tsy and Ungeny.

Other branches of industry that have expanded considerably are the production of building materials (the Rybnitsa Cement and Slate Combine and the Bel’tsy Gypsum Plant), the production of reinforced-concrete structural components (plants in Kishinev, Bel’tsy, Bendery, Kagul, and Tiraspol’), and the glass-making industry (Kishinev, Tiraspol’, Floreshty). The lumber and wood-products industry is represented by the Kodry Furniture and Wood-products Combine at Kishinev and furniture factories at Kishinev, Bel’tsy, Tiraspol’, Bendery, Orgeev, and Drokiia.

Major enterprises of light industry have been built, using mostly raw material imported from other Union republics but also some local raw materials, such as silkworm cocoons and hides. These industries manufacture silk and cotton fabrics, knitted goods, clothing, fur articles, footwear, and rugs. Kishinev’s light industry includes the Stiaua Roshie Knitwear Firm, the Zorile Footwear Association, and garment and leather goods factories, and Bendery has a silk combine and textile, cotton-spinning, footwear, and garment factories. Bel’tsy has a fur combine and a garment factory, and there are garment and spinning factories and a fur combine in Tiraspol’. Orgeev has rug-making and textile and haberdashery factories, Rybnitsa produces knitted underwear, and Komrat manufactures rugs.

Most of Moldavia’s industry is concentrated in the Kishinev, TiraspoP-Bendery, and Bel’tsy industrial complexes, which account for 60 percent of the republic’s industrial workers and about 50 percent of its fixed capital. The economic development of small and medium-sized towns is receiving much attention.

Agriculture. Moldavia has a large-scale, mechanized, highly intensive agriculture. Heavy capital investments in agriculture, accounting for more than 40 percent of the republic’s total capital investments in the postwar period, have substantially strengthened the material and technical base of agriculture. Between 1966 and 1973 the fixed productive capital in agriculture more than doubled. In early 1974 the republic had 239 sovkhozes (including sovkhoz plants) and 481 kolkhozes, all of them supplied with electricity. In 1973 there were 40,000 tractors (as compared with 1,400 in 1940), 3,300 grain-harvesting combines (200 in 1940), 19,800 trucks (600 in 1940), and many other types of farm equipment. Cereal production has been fully mechanized, and manual labor has been reduced to a minimum in the production of corn, sunflowers, sugar beets, and other crops. In 1973, 755,000 tons of mineral fertilizers (in standard units) were used, as compared with 86,000 tons in 1960. The total agricultural output in 1973 was 3.4 times that of 1940, and between 1951 and 1973 labor productivity increased 3.4 times on kolkhozes and 2.2 times on sovkhozes. There has been much specialization and concentration of production through the formation of cooperatives and agroindustrial integration in the kolkhoz and state sectors of social production. In such agroindustrial associations as sovkhoz plants a continuous technical process has been introduced, including the production and processing of farm products and the manufacture of food stuffs.

Agroindustrial integration and cooperation between farms has promoted the creation of scientific-production associations through the affiliation of research institutes with sovkhozes, which study problems of developing crop cultivation and livestock raising on an industrial basis. Such associations exist for vegetable growing and irrigation farming, for field and industrial crops, for fruit growing and winegrowing, and for raising corn and sorghum. Scientific-production associations for livestock breeding include Moldplemob”edineniia and a hybrid center for poultry farming. In 1972 there were 2.7 million hectares of agricultural land, of which 1.9 million hectares were arable land, 400,000 hectares were devoted to perennial plantings, and 360,000 hectares were pastures. Crop farming provided 72.1 percent of the value of the total agricultural output in 1973.

There have been significant changes in the structure of the sown areas: while the area under grain crops has been substantially reduced, the total output has increased considerably. At the same time the area under industrial and fodder crops has been greatly expanded. (For the structure of the sown areas see Table 6.)

In crop cultivation the most important branches are the highly commercial sectors—viticulture and fruit growing. In both branches there has been a concentration of production into larger units. Kolkhozes and sovkhozes have established major interfarm vineyards and orchards of the industrial type. Viticulture is developing rapidly (see Tables 7 and 8).

Both table and wine grapes are cultivated. The main vineyards are in the central and southern regions. Of the total area devoted to fruit trees, 67 percent is occupied by seed-bearing species (apple, pear, and quince) and 28 percent by drupes (plums, apricots, peaches, sour and sweet cherries). Fruit growing is well developed in the Dnestr region and in northern and central Moldavia. Industrial crops are also very important in agriculture. Sunflowers are grown everywhere, but particularly in the north and south. Tobacco is raised mostly in the northern and central regions, and sugar beets are grown in the north. The cultivation of essential-oil crops—Kazanlyk and Crimean roses,

clary sage, mint, lavender, and geraniums—is concentrated in 14 specialized sovkhoz plants.

Vegetables are grown on floodplains and irrigated land in the Dnestr and Prut regions and in the bottomlands of smaller rivers (Reut, Byk, Botna). In 1972 there were 129,000 ha of irrigated land. The principal cereals are corn (49.4 percent of the 1973 sown area) and winter wheat (34.0 percent), which are grown everywhere. The average annual yield of cereals increased from 12.3 centners per ha in 1951–55 to 25.7 centners in 1966–70 and 36.5 centners in 1973.

Great successes have been achieved in livestock raising through the adoption of industrial methods, which has resulted in more efficient use of feeds. Between 1965 and 1973 meat production in the social sector increased by 61 percent and the milk output by 46 percent; egg production increased 4.2 times during that period. Cattle are raised throughout the republic, pigs mostly in the north, and sheep chiefly in the south. Large interkolkhoz livestock-raising complexes have been established in almost all regions. (See Table 9 for data on the livestock population and Table 10 for statistics on the principal products of livestock raising.)

In 1973 the average annual milk yield from one cow at kolkhozes and sovkhozes was 2,801 kg; the wool clip from one sheep was 2.1 kg. As of Jan. 1, 1974, poultry in all categories of farms totaled 12.1 million. (The state purchase of farm products is shown in Table 11.)

Transportation. Most of the freight between Moldavia and the other union republics is carried by rail. The republic has 1,100 km of railroad track. In 1972 the railroads carried 13.8 million tons of outgoing freight (as compared with 1.1 million tons in 1940), 24.5 million tons of incoming freight (as compared with 800,000 tons in 1940), and 10.1 million passengers. The main railroad lines are the Razdel’naia-Tiraspor-Bendery-KishinevUngeny-Bel’tsy-Oknitsa-Chernovtsy line, the Bel’tsy-RybnitsaSlobodka line, and the Bendery-Bessarabka-Reni line.

Motor transport carries most of the freight within the republic. In 1972 there were 10,200 km of roads, of which 7,600 km were paved. In 1972 the freight turnover of motor transport was 3,740 million ton-km (as compared with 19 million ton-km in 1940), and 199.8 million tons of freight were hauled (as compared with 1.5 million tons in 1940). The principal highways are the Odessa-Tiraspor-Bendery-Kishinev-Bel’tsy-Lipkany-Chernovtsy road, the Kishinev-Kotovsk-Komrat-Bolgrad road, the Tiraspol’-Dubossary-Rybnitsa road, and the Kishinev-Kala-rash-Ungeny road.

River transport on the Dnestr is well developed, with a cargo turnover of 171 million ton-km in 1973. There are regular flights between the cities and settlements of the republic, and Kishinev is linked by air routes with the major cities of the USSR.

Economic regions. The northern region, occupying 36.9 per-cent of the republic’s territory, has 34.6 percent of its population. The leading branches of industry are food processing (chiefly sugar refining, oil pressing, and tobacco curing) and the production of building materials. The region’s agriculture specializes in the production of grain and industrial crops (sugar beets, sunflowers, and tobacco), fruit growing, and livestock raising for milk and meat. The region accounts for about 50 percent of the republic’s grain harvest, 96 percent of its sugar beets, 44 percent of its livestock products, all of its granulated sugar, and 81 percent of its vegetable oil.

The central region occupies 28.6 percent of the republic’s territory and has 36.2 percent of its population. It has a diversified economy and strong industrial potential (Kishinev, Orgeev, Kalarash, Ungeny). The leading branches of industry are machine building and metalworking, building-materials production, light industry, food processing (especially wine-making), and woodworking. The dominant branches of agriculture are viticulture, fruit and tobacco growing, and dairy farming. The region supplies 70 percent of the output of the republic’s machine-building and metal-working industries, 40 percent of the output of its light and woodworking industries, more than 40 percent of the republic’s grapes, 35 percent of its tobacco, and 40 percent of its eggs.

The southeastern region covers 10.2 percent of the republic’s territory and has 12.2 percent of the population. It is a region of large-scale industrial fruit and vegetable growing. The region is the leading producer of canned goods (nine plants) and electric power, generated by the Moldavian State Regional Electric Power Plant and the Dubossary Hydroelectric Power Plant. Machine building, light industry, glassmaking, and woodworking are important. The region produces 60 percent of the vegetables processed within the republic, 30 percent of its fruit, 29 percent (by value) of the output of its light industry, 35.3 percent of the output of its woodworking industry, and 73.7 percent of the output of its glassmaking industry.

The southern region occupies 24.3 percent of the republic’s territory and has 16.3 percent of its population. The region is noteworthy for the production of grain (26 percent of the republic’s output), grapes (40 percent), sunflowers (32 percent), and livestock products, including wool (about 60 percent of republic’s output), meat, and milk. The food-processing industry is represented by wine-making, canning, essential-oil production, and the making of butter and cheese.

Standard of living. Moldavia’s rapid economic development has assured a steady rise in the living standard of the urban and village population. In 1973 the national income was more than 2.5 times greater than in 1960, and real per capita income in-creased by 48 percent between 1966 and 1973. Payments and benefits received by the population from the social consumption fund totaled 835 million rubles in 1972 (226 rubles per capita), or 3.6 times as much as in 1960. Budget expenditures on social and cultural measures and science were 45.7 times greater in 1972 than in 1940. The average monthly wage for workers and office employees increased by 65 percent between 1960 and 1973. The retail turnover of goods in state and cooperative commerce, including public eating places, rose to 2,244 million rubles in 1973, up from 44.3 million rubles in 1940 and 677.1 million rubles in 1960 (in prices of the corresponding years).

In 1972 there were 1,125 savings banks with deposits totaling 466.9 million rubles (62.5 million rubles in 1960), and the average deposit in 1972 was 125 rubles (21 rubles in 1960). In 1973 there were 4,400 enterprises providing consumer services (2,700 in 1960), including 2,500 in rural localities. Between 1961 and 1973 the volume of consumer services increased 8.4 times, including

a 26-fold increase in rural localities. Housing construction is proceeding at a rapid rate. Between 1924 and 1973 some 28.6 million sq m of housing space were made available, of which 9.1 million sq m were provided by state and cooperative enterprises and organizations, excluding kolkhozes.

REFERENCES

V. K. KOCHIER

Medicine and public health. In 1972 the birth rate was 20.6 per 1,000 inhabitants, and the mortality rate was 7.6 (as compared to 16.9 in 1940). Infant mortality was reduced sevenfold between 1940 and 1972. The chief causes of death are diseases of the circulatory system and malignant tumors. Malaria, trachoma, and poliomyelitis have been almost completely eradicated, and the incidence of tuberculosis and skin diseases has been reduced sharply. Between 1960 and 1972 the incidence of diphtheria was reduced 48-fold and tetanus 17-fold, and the occurrence of whooping cough and measles has decreased significantly.

In 1972, Moldavia had 365 hospitals with 37,300 beds (10.1 beds per 1,000 inhabitants), as compared with 68 hospitals and 2,500 beds in 1913 (1.2 beds per 1,000 inhabitants). Of the total number of beds 5,200 have been designated for patients with internal disorders, 3,800 for surgery patients, 600 for oncological patients, 500 for ophthalmological cases, 600 for otolaryngological patients, 1,100 for neurological patients, 2,900 for maternity cases, 1,600 for gynecological patients, and 7,400 for children with noninfectious diseases.

Outpatient care is provided by 435 polyclinics. Medical services are also made available to workers at enterprises through two medical units and 31 medical aid stations staffed by physicians. Also affiliated with enterprises were six tuberculosis, two oncological, and nine dermatovenereal dispensaries. In 1972 there were 224 women’s consultation clinics and children’s polyclinics. The republic has 321 pharmacies and 1,300 pharmaceutical stations. Institutions to combat epidemics have been established, including 44 sanitary-epidemic stations.

In 1972 the republic’s medical-preventive institutions were staffed by 8,400 physicians in all specializations (one physician per 441 inhabitants) and 29,800 intermediate medical personnel (in 1913, Moldavia had 293 physicians, or one per 7,000 inhabitants). Medical personnel are trained at the Kishinev Medical Institute and seven medical schools. To raise the qualifications of medical workers a department offering specialized and advanced training for physicians has been organized at the medical institute, and courses for improving the qualifications of intermediate medical workers are given regularly. The republic has medical research institutes of oncology, tuberculosis, and hygiene and epidemiology.

In 1972 there were 17 sanatoriums for adults and children with facilities for 2,900, including eight children’s sanatoriums housing 1,100, and eight houses of rest and hotels with accommodations for 2,000. The republic’s budgetary allocations for health care have increased from 49.9 million rubles in 1960 to 120.4 million rubles in 1972.

Physical culture, sports, and tourism. In 1973 there were some 2,700 physical culture groups with more than 500,000 members. Sports facilities include 23 stadiums, about 900 soccer fields, 800 gymnasiums, 14 swimming pools, 88 rifle ranges, and about 7,000 sports areas. The republic’s 85 sports schools for children and young people had an enrollment of 32,000. Kolkhoznikul, a volunteer sports society, was organized in 1952, and Moldova, a trade-union society, was founded in 1958. In the Soviet period 1,250 masters of sport have been trained, 30 international masters of sport, and four Honored Masters of Sport. Six persons have received the title of Honored Coach of the USSR, seven have been named Honored Physical Culture Workers of the Moldavian SSR, and 70 have won the title of Honored Coach of the Moldavian SSR. From 1969 to 1973 more than 100 athletes became champions of the USSR.

In 1973 there were more than 200 health and sports camps; more than 30,000 persons belonged to tourist groups, and 10,000 were members of fishing clubs. Tourist itineraries include Kishinev, Tiraspol’, Dubossary, Soroki, and Bendery. In 1972 Moldavia was visited by more than 100,000 tourists, including about 25,000 foreign tourists from 32 countries.

Veterinary services. As a result of preventive and sanitary measures, glanders, equine infectious anemia, equine encephalomyelitis, lymphangitis of horses, brucellosis and scabies among farm animals, sheep pox, hog cholera, and vibriosis and trichomoniasis of cattle have been completely eradicated. Tuberculosis of cattle and poultry and hypodermiasis have been almost wiped out. Sporadic cases of malignant anthrax and swine erysipelas are still recorded. Outbreaks of rabies, whose carriers are wild carnivores of the dog family, occur in forested areas. Natural conditions are conducive to the development of helminthiases. Echincoccosis and fascioliasis are found everywhere, the latter especially in the bottomlands of the Dnestr, Prut, and other rivers, and trichinosis is encountered in the central forest region and northern forest-steppe zone, primarily in areas in which foxes are found.

As of Jan. 1, 1974, the state veterinary system comprised 223 institutions, including 33 stations for combating animal diseases, 55 veterinary clinics, 76 veterinary microdistricts, five urban veterinary-sanitary stations, 49 stations for inspecting meat, milk, and other food, and one republic-level and four interraion veterinary laboratories. As of 1973 the republic had 979 veterinarians and 1,665 veterinary assistants, of whom 399 veterinarians and 1,116 veterinary assistants worked on kolkhozes, sovkhozes, and other state enterprises. Veterinary specialists are trained by the veterinary department of the Odessa Agricultural Institute and other agricultural institutes in the USSR. In 1958 the Moldavian Research Institute of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Medicine was established in the settlement of Krikova-Noue.

Prior to the mid-18th century the children of Moldavian feudal lords were taught in schools attached to large monasteries. The first secular schools were established in 1766 in provincial towns. After Bessarabia was incorporated into Russia in 1812, district schools with three grades were opened in all towns in the late 1820’s and early 1830’s. During the 1820’s the Decembrists, notably V. F. Raevskii, organized schools in Kishinev where classes were conducted according to the Bell-Lancaster system. A boys’ Gymnasium was established in Kishinev in 1833 and a school of horticulture in 1842. Many parish schools were opened from the mid-1830’s, when a new school charter was issued restricting general education. According to the 1897 census, 82 percent of Bessarabia’s population was illiterate, and among Moldavians illiteracy reached 90 percent. In 1914–15 there were 1,314 general schools, including 26 Gymnasiums and Realschule in the area now constituting the Moldavian SSR. Only 20 per-cent of school-age children were enrolled in elementary schools, and secondary schools were inaccessible to the children of workers and peasants. There was not a single higher educational institution.

After the Great October Socialist Revolution great opportunities for cultural development became available to the Moldavian people. Efforts were made to establish universal education using Moldavian as the language of instruction. By the time the Moldavian ASSR was formed in October 1924, there were 299 schools (including 13 secondary schools), enrolling 38 percent of the school-age children. In 1924 the republic had 150,000 illiterates, but by 1939 illiteracy among adults had been eradicated. By 1938 universal seven-year education had been successfully introduced. By mid-1940 the school system of the Moldavian ASSR comprised 504 general schools, in which 113,700 pupils were enrolled. At the beginning of 1940 there were three higher educational institutions and 11 secondary specialized schools. Preschool and extracurricular education was also well established. The first kindergarten in the republic was opened in 1926 with 45 children, and by 1940 there were 70 kindergartens with an enrollment of 3,605. Among other educational and cultural institutions for children were a children’s theater, two palaces of Pioneers, 56 Pioneer clubs, nine children’s technical stations, 14 raion and municipal children’s libraries, 113 kolkhoz houses of Pioneers, and a house of artistic education.

A very different situation prevailed in Bessarabia, seized by Rumania in 1918. The Rumanian authorities closed down about 500 schools, and the overwhelming majority of children were deprived of an education. Some 85 percent of the population was illiterate. Instruction in the native language was forbidden. After the reunification of Bessarabia with the USSR and the formation of the Moldavian SSR in 1940, the RSFSR and the Ukrainian SSR sent about 1,000 teachers to establish an education system. In 1940–41 there were 1,864 schools, 22 secondary specialized schools, and six higher educational institutions in the Moldavian SSR. During the Great Patriotic War (1941–45) the occupation forces destroyed and burned more than 600 schools and plundered the equipment of educational institutions. After the liberation of Moldavia in August 1944 many schools were constructed. State capital investments and kolkhoz funds were used to build 1,434 schools with facilities for 372,000 pupils.

An important goal of public education was the eradication of illiteracy among the adult population in former Bessarabia. By early 1951 approximately 1 million persons, including 572,000 women, had been taught to read and write. According to the 1959 census literacy in the nine to 49 age group reached 97.8 percent, and by 1970 it was 99.5 percent.

By 1962–63 eight-year compulsory education was fully established, and since 1966–67 much progress has been made in achieving universal secondary education. In 1972, Moldavia had 1,235 permanent preschool institutions, in which 123,400 children were enrolled, and 1,218 kolkhoz seasonal nurseries. In 1973–74 the republic had 2,140 general schools of all types (including 1,195 secondary schools), with an enrollment of 815,200 pupils, of whom 174,700 were in grades 9 through 11. The schools employed 45,679 teachers. The system of schools offering vocational training has been expanding rapidly. In 1973–74, Moldavia’s 64 vocational schools, with an enrollment of 32,300, were training skilled workers for industry, agriculture, construction, and transportation.

There have been significant achievements in higher and secondary specialized education. In 1973–74 the republic had eight higher educational institutions with an enrollment of 42,400: the University of Kishinev; institutes of agriculture, medicine, pedagogy, general engineering, and art in Kishinev; and pedagogical institutes in Tiraspol’ and Bel’tsy. There were also 46 secondary specialized schools with an enrollment of 52,400.

In early 1973 there were 1,918 public libraries housing 18.6 million copies of books and journals. The largest libraries are the N. K. Krupskaia State Library of the Moldavian SSR, the library of the Academy of Sciences of the Moldavian SSR, and the library of the University of Kishinev. The republic has 21 museums, including the Museum of History and Local Lore of the Moldavian SSR, the Museum of the History of the Communist Party of Moldavia (and its branch, the Museum of the Kishinev Underground Printing Press of the Leninist Newspaper Iskra), the Art Museum of the Moldavian SSR, the A. S. Pushkin Museum-House, the G. I. Kotovskii and S. Lazo Republic Memorial Museum, all in Kishinev; the Museums of History and Local Lore in Tiraspol’, Kagul, and other cities; and the G. I. Kotovskii Museum-House in Kotovsk. Among other cultural and educational facilities are 1,780 clubs, 66 palaces and houses of Pioneers and schoolchildren, 18 stations for young technicians, six stations for young naturalists, and an excursion-tourist station.

REFERENCE

Natural and technical sciences.PRIOR TO THE GREAT OCTOBER SOCIALIST REVOLUTION. Prior to the early 19th century knowledge in the natural sciences and technology was gradually acquired through the development of livestock raising, wine-making, crafts, mining, and construction. Turkish oppression, which caused an economic decline, also had a detrimental effect on education and culture. But as early as the 18th century the works of the outstanding Moldavian scientists N. Milesku (Milescu) and D. Kantemir (Cantemir) became known in Europe. Milesku described the natural features of China, which he visited in 1675–78, and Kantemir studied Moldavia’s geography and natural history—its resources, fauna, and flora.

The natural sciences developed more rapidly after the overthrow of Turkish domination and the reunification of Bessarabia with Russia in 1812. Russian expeditions collected much material on Moldavia’s natural, chiefly geological, resources. In the first half of the 19th century a materialist trend developed in the natural sciences, represented by K. Vyrnav, T. Stamati, and Ia. Chikhak. In 1842 the Bessarabian School of Horticulture was opened, where meteorological and breeding research was conducted under the direction of A. D. Dengink.

During the second half of the 19th century, increased production of grain and fruit stimulated research in pedology and agricultural science. Important work in this area was done by A. P. Billo, A. I. Grosul-Tolstoi, M. M. Pautynskii, and K. I. Tardan. The soils of Bessarabia were studied by V. V. Dokuchaev, M. V. Korchevskii, and A. I. Nabokikh. Research in fruit growing, wine-making, and tobacco growing was conducted by K. D. Dekenbakh, E. Boden de Baliu, and M. V. Neruchev. During the 1880’s and 1890’s the entomologist I. M. KrasiPshchik published a number of works describing his experience in combating phylloxera, and in 1910 he founded a biological and entomological station in Kishinev. Problems in biology and agriculture were also studied at the Museum of Zoology, Agriculture, and Crafts of the Bessarabian Zemstvo (founded in 1890), now the Museum of History and Local Lore of the Moldavian SSR. The studies published by the museum’s researchers were highly esteemed by the well-known scientists A. O. Kovalevskii, V. I. Gratsianov, and E. Marion. A. A. Brauner and F. F. Osterman wrote on the fauna of Moldavia. The eminent biologist and agronomist N. K. Mogilianskii made a number of studies here in the early 20th century.

Geological and hydrological exploration was conducted by the Odessa researchers I. F. Sintsov and A. N. Dobrin’i and by several Moldavian scientists. In 1886 the Meteorological Observatory and the Rain-measuring and Thunderstorm Station were established in Kishinev under the direction of the St. Petersburg Central Physics Observatory. A number of works on biology were published by A. G. Barladian and P. I. Rogovskii. The works of the medical scientists N. A. Doroshevskii, G. N. Durdufi, A. V. Korchak-Chepurkovskii, A. D. Kotsovskii, V. P. Kozhukharev, and T. Chorba were widely acclaimed. The Bessarabian Society of Naturalists and Lovers of Natural Science conducted research and popularized natural science. On the whole, however, scientific research prior to the Great October Socialist Revolution was done by individual scientists, working independently and generally without support from the state. Conditions did not permit the practical application of scientific achievements on a large scale.

SINCE THE GREAT OCTOBER SOCIALIST REVOLUTION. The victory of Soviet power in Moldavia opened the way for the rapid development of scientific research. The scientific centers of the fraternal republics assisted the setting up of research projects and the training of personnel. The Moldavian-born L. S. Berg, who subsequently became a prominent Soviet scientist, published Bessarabia: Land, People, Economy in Petrograd in 1918. In the 1930’s studies were conducted at the newly founded higher educational institutions and experimental agricultural stations. P. I. Dvornikov’s research on crop cultivation, A. M. Shumakov’s and B. I. Biblin’s studies in plant physiology and biochemistry, and P. P. Dorofeev’s work on agrotechnics were important for the development of Moldavian science. After Bessarabia was reunited with the USSR, agricultural experimental stations were organized on its territory, including the station affiliated with Kishinev Agricultural Institute.

During the first postwar years the direction of scientific research was determined by the tasks of restoring the economy and culture. Primary attention was given to the biological and agricultural sciences. Moldavia’s flora was thoroughly studied, methods of combating erosion and drought were developed, and geological prospecting was undertaken. Development of the food-processing, machine-building, and instrument-making industries necessitated research in chemistry, applied physics, and other sciences. Subsequently, projects were initiated in mathematics, power engineering, semiconductor physics, and other disciplines that became important in the course of the scientific and technological revolution.

Biological and agricultural sciences. During the 1960’s an exhaustive study of Moldavia’s soils was completed, and soil maps were compiled. This project, directed for many years by Academician N. A. Dimo of the V. I. Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences, provided a scientific basis for efficient land use in kolkhozes and sovkhozes. Much attention was devoted to land reclamation and to methods of combating water and wind erosion. The recommendations of agrochemists on the types of fertilizers to be used for various soils were put into practice under the direction of I. G. Dikusar. The theoretical principles of breeding certain crops were worked out by K. V. Moraru and other scientists. A. E. Kovarskii headed the development of high-yielding varieties of corn and soybeans. The Moldavian Research Institute of Irrigated Land Cultivation and Vegetable Growing has begun work on the breeding and introduction of vegetable crops (P. I. Dvornikov, N. N. Zaginailo). Some of the vegetable varieties developed in Moldavia are raised in other countries.

Research in plant physiology and biochemistry, including work on the biological methods of protecting plants against pests and diseases, is continuing. Scientists have discovered the phenomenon of the absorption of water vapor by plant cells from internal, intercellular spaces, depending on the concentration of CO₂ (L. N. Babushkin). The chemistry of plant protein and amino acids is being studied by V. G. Klimenko and his colleagues at the University of Kishinev, and research is being conducted on the biochemistry of essential-oil plants and photosynthesis. S. M. Ivanov and others are working on the physiology of plant nutrition and on the growth and development of plants. Studies have been made on the interrelationship between the processes of biosynthesis and exchange in fruits, which is important for improving the quality of fruit (V. V. Arasimovich). Scientific principles and practical methods for combating pests and diseases of crops, including grapes and tobacco, are being developed by D. D. Verderevskii and I. S. Popushoi. Scientists at the Kishinev Agricultural Institute and the Moldavian Research Institute of Fruitgrowing, Viticulture, and Wine-making have developed microzoning and specialization in viticulture and fruit cultivation, as well as new methods of wine production (P. N. Ungurian, G. la. Rud’). Industrial fruit growing is expanding on a scientific basis, and there have been significant achievements in agricultural entomology. New varieties of pulses and fruits and berries are being developed, and methods for cultivating them are being improved.

Botanists have compiled a map of the republic’s vegetation and a guide to its flora. New plants are being developed from native flora by T. S. Geideman, problems of embryonic development are being studied by A. A. Chebotar’, research is being conducted on the anatomical structure of fruits by B. T. Matienko, and the species composition and growth of algae in rivers and lakes are being studied by V. M. Shalar’. The work of V. A. Rybin and others on distant plant hybridization has received recognition in many countries.

Zoologists have done comprehensive research on Moldavia’s fauna, for example, the work of G. A. Uspenskii, I. M. Gania, and M. N. Lozan. A. A. Spasskii and others have studied the parasites affecting the principal groups of wild and domestic animals, birds, and fish. Research in veterinary medicine, livestock raising, and zootechnics is expanding. la. I. Prints’ work on the trophic relationship between phylloxera and the host plant and the means for combating it has received recognition by entomologists throughout the world. Hydrobiologists and ichthyologists have determined the composition of the hydrofauna and the fishing potentials of lakes and rivers (M. F. laroshenko, V. L. Grimal’skii). Microbiological investigations were begun in the late 1960’s, particularly on the biosynthesis of physiologically active substances by microorganisms, in order to increase the productivity of farm animals. Equipment for producing protein from the hydrocarbons of petroleum and an apparatus for cultivating hydrogen-oxidizing bacteria have been developed by V. V. Kotelev and P. N. Razumovskii. Enzyme preparations created by microbiologists have been used in the wine-making industry.

Medical research has emphasized problems of higher nervous activity and the influence of the cortex and subcortical formations on endocrine glands. Models of the origin and development of diseases and of the functioning of neurons are being developed by B. E. Mel’nik, M. S. Kakhana, A. M. Marits, and S. A. Kuznetsov. V. Kh. Anestiadi, N. K. Georgiu, and K. A. Tsybyrne are doing important work in pathological anatomy, surgery, geographical pathology, oncology, hygiene and epidemiology, and pharmacology. The heteroperitoneal compounds for restorative surgery created by N. N. Kuznetsov are used in many countries, and E. N. Shliakhov’s preparation Antraksin, used in the diagnosis of malignant anthrax, has become famous.

Paleontology. Comprehensive studies of the so-called Tiraspol’ cross section have become the basis for correlating the Pleistocene in Western and Eastern Europe. Because of its complete paleontological range the Tiraspol’ cross section is regarded as a standard cross section for all of Europe.

Chemistry. The Institute of Chemistry of the Academy of Sciences of the Moldavian SSR has been conducting research on various problems of inorganic chemistry (coordination compounds of transition metals) and organic chemistry (alkaloids, terpenoids, and estrogens). Complexes resembling biologically important systems have been synthesized by A. V. Ablov. A number of physiologically active plant substances have been studied, and methods for synthesizing their analogues have been developed. A new medicinal preparation called Brevikollin, developed by G. V. Lazur’evskii, has been introduced, and several new preservatives have been proposed. Studies are being conducted on synthesizing growth stimulants for animals, as well as attracting agents and analogues of a rejuvenating hormone for combating insect pests. Physicochemical, particularly polaro-graphic, methods of analysis have been developed; one of the first radio-frequency polarographs in the USSR was designed by lu. S. Lialikov. Research is also being conducted on the electronic structure of coordination systems, the physical chemistry of adsorption processes, and the synthesis of monomers.

Physics. Research in physics is conducted at the institutes of the Academy of Sciences of the Moldavian SSR, at the University of Kishinev, and at the Kishinev Polytechnic Institute. Since the 1960’s experimental and theoretical research in solid-state physics has expanded. Techniques for obtaining semimetals and complex crystalline and glassy semiconductors have been developed. Their physicochemical properties and energy spectrum are being studied, as well as the kinetics of charge carriers and the physical processes in heterojunctions (S. I. Radautsan, D. V. Gitsu, V. V. Sobolev). The growth and mechanical properties of crystals are also studied. The atomic-crystalline structures of complex and semiconducting compounds have been determined by T. I. Malinovskii. A theory of semiconductors and dielectrics at high excitation levels has been developed. The states of electrons, excitons, and local centers in deformable crystals within a laser radiation field have been studied by V. A. Kovarskii, S. A. Moskalenko, and lu. E. Perlin. A theory of superconductors with overlapping energy bands has been proposed. A theory of superconductivity in semiconductors has been advanced, and the effect of pressure and impurities on the properties of superconductors has been studied by V. A. Moskalenko. Research is in progress on the propagation of electromagnetic waves, and a theory of the nucleus and nuclear reactions is being developed.

Mathematics and cybernetics. Mathematical research has emphasized algebra, mathematical logic, differential equations, geometry, topology, and functional analysis. Various nonclassical systems of logic and propositions have been studied by A. V. Kuznetsov. Important work on the theory of the radicals of rings and algebras, on the theory of radicals in categories, on a structural theory of rings and groupoids, on an additive theory of algebraic systems, and on a theory of quasi-groups has been done by V. A. Andrunakievich, V. I. Arnautov, V. D. Belousov, and lu. M. Riabukhin. Algebraic invariants of differential equations, problems of stability in Poisson’s sense, properties of minimal sets, and various generalizations of dynamic systems have been studied by K. S. Sibirskii and B. A. Shcherbakov. Mathematical problems of crystallography, properties of the convexity of sets, graph theory, and certain problems of general topology have been investigated by A. M. Zamorzaev, I. I. Parovichenko, and P. S. Soltan. Problems of the theory of non-self-adjoint operators and integral equations are also studied. A number of projects have been completed on the automation of programming and on the application of mathematical methods and electronic computers in mechanics and for achieving optimal production.

Technological sciences. Machines and technological processes for the food industry have been developed. New production methods have been worked out for the food-processing and wine-making industries; a method for aseptically preserving semiprocessed juice in large tanks has been introduced commercially. The Institute of Applied Physics of the Academy of Sciences of the Moldavian SSR is exploring possible new uses for electricity. The physical nature and fundamental principles of electric-spark machining and electric-spark alloying of materials are being studied, and equipment for carrying out these processes is being developed by B. R. Lazarenko. The anode dissolution of metals and new methods for the electrochemical processing of materials are studied by lu. N. Petrov. Research has been conducted on the phenomena created by electric fields in liquids and gases during heat transfer and mass transfer. M. K. Bologa is working on the application of the energy of ultrahigh frequencies in technical processes.

The electric flotation of substances and the effect of electro-physical actions on the vital activity of organisms are being investigated. G. V. Chalyi is working on cybernetic methods and means for achieving maximum efficiency in power systems, power transmission lines, information systems used for control purposes, and the parameters of electric-power installations. Moldavia was the first republic in the USSR to develop and manufacture cast microwire in glass insulation, and high-resistance instruments of great precision and stability have been designed using the microwire. Among the Soviet republics Moldavia is a leader in designing ultrasonic defectoscopes. New agricultural machines have been developed, for example, tractor-mounted soil fumigators and grafting and grape planting machinery.

Geography. The geographical department of the Academy of Sciences of the Moldavian SSR conducts research on Moldavia’s natural resources and enviroment. Erosion and landslide processes are studied to determine the best locations of construction sites and to facilitate the economic organization of the territory. The research institutions of the Academy of Sciences and scientific institutions affiliated with government departments have been conducting studies on the protection of the natural environment. Problems of protecting rivers and lakes and treating sewage are studied, and the regime of reservoirs is analyzed. Research has been conducted on soil geography and medical geography.

Geology and geophysics. Studies in geology and geophysics are conducted by the Geological Board of the Council of Ministers of the Moldavian SSR and the Institute of Geophysics and Geology of the Academy of Sciences of the Moldavian SSR. A state geological survey has been made, and many boreholes have been drilled, some to a depth of 4.5 km in the south. Several geophysical projects have been undertaken. Stratigraphy, the composition of rocks, and the history of geological development have been studied. The seismic zoning of the entire republic and the seismic microzoning of various cities have been completed. Deposits of building materials, including limestone, gypsum, sand, sandstone, gravel, Keramzit raw material, and natural sorbents, have been discovered, and mineral waters and fresh underground waters have been investigated.

Social sciences.PRIOR TO THE GREAT OCTOBER SOCIALIST REVOLUTION. The first important examples of Moldavian social thought were chronicles, which were written between the 15th and 18th centuries. In the 15th and 16th centuries chronicles were written in Church Slavonic, but later they were composed in Moldavian and partly in Greek. From the 16th to the 19th century progressive Moldavians were concerned primarily with picblems of the struggle for independence. In various chronicles these problems were resolved in different ways. The anonymous 15th-century chronicles and the 16th-century chronicles of Makarii (Macarie), Evfimii (Efimie), and Azarii (Azane) were written at the behest of the hospodars. They reflect a faith in divine guidance, and the idea of a national liberation struggle is completely absent. The chronicles of G. Ureke (Ureche; covering events from 1359 to 1592), M. Kostin (Costin; events from 1592 to 1662), and I. Nekulche (Neculce; events from 1662 to 1743) reflect the outlook of the large boyars. Nevertheless, they contain incipient humanistic views and express anti-Turkish sentiments. The works of N. Milesku (Milescu) and D. Kantemir (Cantemir), written for the most part in Russia in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, represent a new stage in the development of Moldavian social thought. Milesku contributed much valuable information on the history of China, and Kantemir wrote comprehensive works on the history of Moldavia and Turkey. On the whole, they held deistic views, but they also subscribed to humanitarian ideas and promoted Moldavian-Russian scientific and cultural ties.

During the second half of the 18th century several new currents and trends appeared in Moldavian social thought. Amfilokhii (Amfilohie), who lived in the late 18th century, contributed to the development of education in Moldavia. The influence of progressive Russian and Western European social thought grew stronger. A. N. Radishchev’s Journey From St. Petersburg to Moscow circulated in manuscript form, and the French Encyclopedia and the works of Voltaire and Montesquieu appeared.

After Bessarabia’s incorporation into Russia, the development of Moldavian social thought closely paralleled that of the Rus-sian, Ukrainian, and other peoples of the Russian empire. The works of the Decembrists and the Russian revolutionary democrats penetrated Moldavia. Enlightenment ideas were disseminated by K. Stamati (C. Stamate), K. Negrutstsi (C. Negruzzi), and A. Khyzhdeu (A. Haşdeu). Descriptions of Moldavia, including its history, appeared in the works of P. Kunitskii, P. Svin’in, A. Skal’kovskii, la. Saburov, and A. Zashchuk. A. Russo was the leading representative of revolutionary democratic ideas in Moldavia during the first half of the 19th century.

In the second half of the 19th century the banned works of V. G. Belinskii, A. I. Herzen, N. A. Dobroliubov, and N. G. Chernyshevskii were disseminated in Moldavia. In legally published philosophical writings the struggle intensified between idealism (A. Sturdza and P. Leopard) and materialism (not always consistent). The revolutionary Narodniks (Populists) N. Kodrianu, Z. Ralli-Arbore, and V. Kresesku were active in the Russian revolutionary movement and were acquainted with some of the works of K. Marx and F. Engels.

An important contribution to the struggle against idealism in Moldavia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was made by the representatives of natural-historical materialism, notably I. M. Krasil’shchik, A. D. Kotsovskii, and N. K. Mogilianskii. From the late 19th century Marxist propaganda was disseminated by Social Democrats, who also made use of legal opportunities. The works of V. I. Lenin enjoyed great popularity in Moldavia.

SINCE THE GREAT OCTOBER SOCIALIST REVOLUTION. Philosophy. After the October Revolution and the creation of the Moldavian ASSR in 1924, Marxist-Leninist ideology was firmly established. The first Marxist works on the history of Moldavian social thought appeared. The philosophical heritage of V. I. Lenin was studied, and I. V. Ochinskii dealt with problems of scientific atheism. In Bessarabia, which was occupied by boyar Rumania, the struggle against reactionary idealistic trends was led by the underground Communist organization. Marxist-Leninist ideas were also propagated by representatives of the progressive intelligentsia, notably P. Constantinescu-Ia§i. A significant contribution to the struggle against religious ideas was made by the materialist-oriented naturalists A. Donich and F. Poruchik.

After the formation of the Moldavian SSR in 1940, subdepartments of philosophy, scientific communism, and Marxism-Leninism were established at the republic’s higher educational institutions. A philosophy section was organized at the Institute of History of the Academy of Sciences of the Moldavian SSR; it was later reconstituted the Department of Philosophy and Law. An important event in the republic’s cultural life was the publication in Moldavian of the principal works of Marx and Engels and Lenin’s complete works. The republic’s philosophers work on problems of Marxist-Leninist philosophy, the history of Moldavian philosophy and sociopolitical thought, and scientific communism. Among the leading Moldavian philosophers are D. T. Ursul, V. N. Ermuratskii, A. V. Shcheglov, and A. A. Zavtur. Sociological research is also conducted.

History. The first Marxist scholarship on the history of Moldavia appeared in the Moldavian ASSR in the mid-1920’s, and it has flourished in the postwar years in the Moldavian SSR. An important stage in the development of a school of Moldavian historians was the preparation of the two-volume History of the Moldavian SSR (1st ed., vols. 1–2, 1951–55; 2nd ed., vols. 1–2, 1965–68), in which the Marxist view of Moldavian history was first put forward. Whereas older bourgeois historical writing had dealt primarily with political events, Moldavian historians stressed the study of socioeconomic history and the class struggle.

Moldavian and Moscow scientists are conducting investigations of all archaeological periods (T. S. Passek, V. I. Markevich, E. A. Rikman). Slavic settlements of the sixth to 13th centuries have been studied by G. B. Fedorov, P. P. Byrnia, and I. G. Khynku. The ethnography of Moldavia is studied in the ethnographic section of the Academy of Sciences of the Moldavian SSR (V. S. Zelenchuk). Major achievements in the history of feudalism include the identification of the type of feudalism that arose in Moldavia (P. V. Sovetov) and the tracing of the history of Moldavian-Russian-Ukrainian ties (N. A. Mokhov, N. P. Kirichenko). The disintegration of feudalism and the development of capitalism in Bessarabia, as well as problems in economic history, are treated in the works of I. G. Budak, la. S. Grosul, and M. P. Muntian.

The history of the class struggle, the revolutionary movement, and the socialist revolution have been studied by D. E. Shemiakov, N. A. Berezniakov, and S. A. Afteniuk. K. V. Stratievskii has described the building of socialism in the Moldavian SSR. la. M. Kopanskii and I. M. Bobeiko have worked on the economic and political situation in Bessarabia and the class struggle there during the boyar-Rumanian occupation. Special attention has been devoted to the struggle of the working people of Bessarabia for reunification with the USSR. The Moldavian people’s role in the war against the fascist aggressors (1941–45) is analyzed in the works of S. la. Afteniuk, and state construction in Moldavia is treated in monographs by A. M. Lazarev and A. V. Surilov. The building of socialism during the postwar years is studied by S. K. Brysiakin, B. K. Vizer, L. E. Repida, M. K. Sytnik, and V. I. Tsaranov. D. E. Shemiakov, A. M. Lisetskii, and I. M. Bobeiko are working on the history of the Communist Party of Moldavia; An Outline History of the Communist Party of Moldavia was published in 1964, followed by a second edition in 1968. The history of Moldavia’s culture and sociopolitical thought has been studied by A. I. Babii, P. A. Kovchegov, and E. M. Russev.

Considerable work has been done on the publication of sources by I. A. Antsupov and N. V. Berezniakov and on Moldavian historiography by la. S. Grosul, N. A. Mokhov, and P. V. Sovetov. In the study of world history emphasis has been placed on the history of Rumania and the Balkan countries, especially on Rumanian-Russian ties. Eminent historians in this field include V. la. Grosul, I. E. Levit, M. A. Muntian, A. K. Moshanu, and E. E. Chertan. Various problems in the history of the Latin American countries have been studied by N. V. Korolev, France by R. lu. Engel’gardt, Germany by A. M. Mirkind and N. M. Shilintsev, and antiquity by N. B. Bregovskaia.

Historical research is conducted at the Institute of History of the Academy of Sciences of the Moldavian SSR (the Institute of History, Economics, Language, and Literature was established in the Moldavian ASSR in 1939); at the Institute of Party His-tory under the Central Committee of the CP of Moldavia, a branch of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism under the Central Committee of the CPSU, where a section of party history had been formed in 1958; and at subdepartments of sociopolitical studies at Moldavian higher educational institutions. Monographs and collections of scholarly articles and material are published, and several historical series (Uchenye Zapiski) are issued by the Institute of History of the Academy of Sciences of the Moldavian SSR and subdepartments of higher educational institutions. Also published are the Izvestiia AN MSSR (social science series), collections of documents, and the thematic collections of articles Balkan Historical Collection (vols. 1–3, 1968–73) and Southeastern Europe During the Middle Ages (vol. 1, 1972). A bibliographical index, The History, Archaeology, and Ethnography of Moldavia: An Index to Soviet Writings From 1918 to 1968, was compiled by P. M. Kozhukhar’ and I. I. Shpak in 1973. Historical Scholarship in the Moldavian SSR by la. S. Grosul and N. A. Mokhov was published in 1970.

Economics. After the October Revolution, particularly after the formation of the Moldavian ASSR, Marxist-Leninist economic scholarship developed in left-bank, Soviet Moldavia. During the 1920’s and 1930’s Soviet Moldavian economists worked on specific problems concerning the socialist reorganization of the republic’s economy. Systematic economic research was conducted at the Institute of History, Economics, Language, and Literature from 1940. In the late 1940’s and early 1950’s emphasis was placed on problems connected with the restoration of the republic’s economy, which had been devastated by the war. Moldavian economists also focused on the socialist reorganization of the economy, the economics of various branches of the national economy, and problems concerning the location of industrial and agricultural enterprises and the establishment of raw-material zones for the food industry.

Since the 1960’s research has concentrated on problems of creating the material and technical base of communism and forming communist production relations. Taking into account the special features of the Moldavian economy, a systematic study has been made of the problems of predicting the development and distribution of productive forces (M. M. Radul, M. M. Ursul, V. F. Chervinskii, A. A. Gudym). N. P. Frolov, V. V. Chembrovskii, and A. F. Kozhukhar’ have dealt with the efficient use of labor resources. Important work has also been done on socialist reproduction, capital investment, economic accounting (khozraschet ), improving the economic relationship between agricultural enterprises and the processing industry, and problems connected with implementing economic reforms (R. D. Fedotova, G. N. Singur, V. A. Sidorov, D. S. Ton). Various specific problems relating to the economics of industry, agriculture, construction, transportation, finances, and economic history have been treated by I. F. Piskunenko, I. V. Shirshov, A. S. larotskii, I. P. Shevchuk, and I. I. Mokan. I. D. Blazh, P. B. Kozhukhar’, and L. A. Gancheva have worked on the application of mathematical techniques in economics.

The centers of economic research are the Institute of Economics of the Academy of Sciences of the Moldavian SSR, established in 1960 to supersede the economics department of the Moldavian branch of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR; the Research Institute of Planning attached to Gosplan (State Planning Committee) of the Moldavian SSR (1971); the Research Institute of Agricultural Economics and Organization of the Ministry of Agriculture of the Moldavian SSR (1970); economics sections of various industrial research institutes; and economics departments and subdepartments at higher educational institutions.

Law. Jurisprudence and legal training developed after the establishment of the Moldavian SSR. A law school was opened in Kishinev in 1940, and a branch of the Ail-Union Juridical Correspondence Institute was established there in 1945. Since 1959 jurists have been trained at the law department of the University of Kishinev. Legal research is conducted at the university’s department of law and at the law section of the Department of Philosophy and Law of the Academy of Sciences of the Moldavian SSR. The fraternal Union republics, including the RSFSR and the Ukrainian and Byelorussian SSR’s, have rendered much assistance in the development of legal science and the training of personnel. The creation and development of a Soviet national state for the Moldavian people has been treated by P. V. Sovetov, G. K. Fedorov, lu. N. Todyka, and V. G. Lavrik. The role of law in resolving problems of the national economy in the Moldavian SSR has been studied by V. N. lakovlev, P. S. Nikitiuk, V. N. Petrov, lu. I. Tiutekin, O. V. Ovchinnikova, F. P. Negru, A. N. Kozhukhar’, and V. I. Davydov. Problems of strengthening the socialist economy and combating crime in the Moldavian SSR have been examined by D. I. Leoshkevich, K. N. Floria, T. I. Karpov, and S. G. Dorash. Monographs have been published on the history of the state and law of the Moldavian SSR, on inheritance law, and on problems of regulating the activity of agroindustrial enterprises and associations and insuring the property of agricultural enterprises. Studies have also appeared on the legal protection of the natural environment and on the organization of the courts and procuracy. Moldavian legal scholars have also participated in drawing up legal codes for the republic in the various branches of law and have written commentaries to the codes concerning their practical application.

Scientific institutions. An extensive network of scientific institutions was established during the Soviet period. In early 1973 there were 68 research institutions, including higher schools, as compared with ten in 1940. The leading scientific center is the Academy of Sciences of the Moldavian SSR, which comprises 20 research institutions. As of Jan. 1, 1973, there were 6,200 scientific workers (compared with 180 in 1940, about 2,000 in 1960, and more than 5,600 in 1970), among them 158 doctors of science and more than 2,200 candidates of science. The republic’s scientists and scholars include one corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, one academician and one corresponding member of the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences of the USSR, one corresponding member of the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR, two corresponding members of the V. I. Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences, two corresponding members of the Academy of Arts of the USSR, and 20 academicians and 23 corresponding members of the Academy of Sciences of the Moldavian SSR.

The Academy of Sciences of the Moldavian SSR coordinates research in the natural and social sciences. The Institute of Party History attached to the Central Committee of the CP of Moldavia and a branch of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism under the Central Committee of the CPSU direct historical scholarship. Research in technology is coordinated by Gosplan (State Planning Committee) of the Moldavian SSR; in agriculture, by the Ministry of Agriculture of the Moldavian SSR; and in medicine, by the republic’s Ministry of Health.

Moldavian scientists and scholars maintain close ties with institutions in the fraternal Union republics through joint research projects and expeditions, conferences, the publication of scholarly works, the training of staffs, and the exchange of information. The Energy Cybernetics Section of the Academy of Sciences of the Moldavian SSR coordinates the republic’s re-search on the industrial use of high-frequency current. Projects in physics, cybernetics, history, and archaeology are being conducted jointly with the institutes of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. Scientific workers for Moldavia are trained in the USSR’s many scientific and higher educational institutions. In turn, Moldavia’s scientific and higher educational institutions train specialists for the other fraternal republics, particularly in mathematics, plant physiology, and technical cybernetics.

Moldavian scientists have also established extensive ties with scientists in other countries. Joint research projects in mathematics, physics, chemistry, and technology are being carried out with Rumania, Hungary, the German Democratic Republic, and Czechoslovakia. There is a regular exchange of scientific information with foreign scientific centers. The republic has held international scientific conferences on medicine, theoretical and experimental physics, paleontology and stratigraphy, and the agricultural sciences, and Moldavian scientists have taken part in international scientific congresses. The Ail-Union journal Elektronnaia obrabotka materialov (Electronic Processing of Materials), published since 1965 by the Academy of Sciences of the Moldavian SSR, is distributed in 12 countries. The journal is translated into English and republished in the USA.

O. IU. TARASOV and A. S. SHAKHIL’DIAN

REFERENCES

The origin of printing in Moldavia dates from the 17th century. In 1643 a printing shop founded in Iaşi with the aid of printers from Kiev, L’vov, and Moscow issued the first Moldavian book, Cartea românească de invă$ătură (Book of Precepts) by Metropolitan Varlaam. The first secular books in Moldavian were the Laws of Vasile Lupu (1646) and The Highest Court, or the Wise Man’s Dispute With the World, or the Soul’s Lawsuit Against the Body, a philosophical treatise by D. Kantemir (1698). In the late 18th century the Moldavian publisher M. Strel’bitskii printed several Moldavian primers at his press in Dubossary. The Moldavian writer G. Asaki (Asachi) was active in publishing, organizing the Albina (Bee) Publishing House and Printing Press in 1832.

Bessarabia’s incorporation into Russia in 1812 stimulated the region’s cultural development. The region’s first press, founded in Kishinev in 1814 at the bishop’s residence, printed primers and textbooks in addition to religious literature. Prior to the October Revolution of 1917 most Bessarabian newspapers and periodicals were issued in Russian, including the official newspapers Bessarabskie oblastnye vedomosti (Bessarabian Regional Gazette; 1854–73) and Bessarabskie gubernskie vedomosti (Bessarabian Provincial Gazette; 1873–1917). From time to time newspapers in Moldavian appeared briefly, for example, Basarabia (1906) and Moldovanul ( 1907). From April 1901 to March 1902 the underground printing press of the Leninist newspaper hkra was active in Kishinev.

The establishment of Soviet power in Moldavia in 1918 gave the Moldavian people the opportunity to develop their national culture, including a press in their native language. The first Soviet newspaper in Moldavian, Plugarul roshu (The Red Plowman), began appearing on May 1, 1924. Among its contributors were M. V. Frunze, G. I. Petrovskii, and G. I. Kotovskii. After the formation of the Moldavian ASSR in 1924, the newspaper became the organ of the Moldavian Oblast Committee of the Communist Party (Bolshevik) of the Ukraine and the government of Soviet Moldavia. In September 1925 a Ukrainian edition of the newspaper called Chervonyi orach (The Red Plowman) appeared. In 1930 Plugarul roshu was renamed Moldova sochialiste (Socialist Moldavia), and Chervonyi orach became Sotsyalistychna Moldaviia (Socialist Moldavia).

In Bessarabia, which was occupied by Kingdom of Rumania, the Bessarabian Party Oblast Committee published several underground newspapers: Bessarabskii kommunist (Bessarabian Communist, 1920–21), Bolshevikul basarabian (Bessarabian Bolshevik, 1921–22, in Moldavian and Russian), and Krasnoe znamia (Red Banner, 1927–36). The Bessarabian Komsomol Oblast Committee issued lunyi kommunar (Young Communard) and Molodoi boVshevik (Young Bolshevik), and the Kishinev City Party Committee published the newspaper Proletarskaia pravda.

After the reunification of Bessarabia with the USSR Sotsyalistychna Moldaviia, renamed Sovetskaia Moldaviia, and Moldova sochialiste became organs of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolshevik) of Moldavia. They have been published as separate newspapers since September 1940. During the Great Patriotic War (1941–45), Moldavian newspapers and journals were not published, with the exception of Moldova sochialiste, which was issued by the Political Directorate of the Southern Front. From December 1942 the newspaper was published in Moscow, from where it was delivered to the front, to partisan units, and to the Moldavian evacuees in the eastern regions of the USSR.

In 1944, after Moldavia’s liberation, the republic’s printing facilities, which had been completely destroyed by the occupation forces, were rebuilt. Publication of the republic’s newspapers and journals was resumed. In 1972 the republic’s publishing houses, including Kartia Moldoveniaske (Moldavian Book), Lumina (Light), and Shtiintsa (Science), published 1,768 titles of books and pamphlets totaling 12,964,000 copies. Of these titles, 585 were Moldavian-language works totaling 6,887,000 copies. Also issued were 77 magazines and other periodicals with an annual circulation of 35,597,700 copies, including 19 publications in Moldavian with an annual circulation of 17,539,000. The republic’s 120 newspapers had a single-issue circulation of 1,681,000 and an annual circulation of 309,021,900. Of these newspapers, 54 were published in Moldavian and had a single-issue circulation of 855,900 and an annual circulation of 166,195,600.

The republic’s leading Moldavian-language newspapers are Moldova sochialiste (Socialist Moldavia, published since 1924), Viatsa satului (Rural Life, since 1945), Tinerimia Moldovei (Moldavian Youth, since 1928), Tynerul leninist (Young Leninist, since 1941), and the weekly Kultura (Culture, since 1954). The major Russian-language newspapers are Sovetskaia Moldaviia (Soviet Moldavia, since 1925), Molodezh’Moldavii (Moldavian Youth, since 1940), and lunyi leninets (Young Leninist, since 1941). Among the sociopolitical, literary, scientific, technical, young people’s, women’s, and satirical magazines published in Moldavian are Komunistul Moldovei (Moldavian Communist, also issued in Russian), Limba shi literatura moldoveniaske (Moldavian Language and Literature), Ynvetsetorul sovetik (Soviet Schoolteacher), Nistru (Dnestr), Tribuna (Tribune, with a Russian-language edition), Skynteia leniniste (Leninist Spark), and Femeia Moldovei (Moldavian Woman). The principal Rus-sian-language magazine is Kodry. The information agency of the Moldavian SSR, ATEM, is located in Kishinev.

Radio broadcasts were first transmitted in 1930 in Tiraspol’, and the Kishinev Television Center has been in operation since May 1958. In 1973 the republic radio and television were broadcasting three radio programs and two television programs in both Moldavian and Russian, as well as relaying programs from Moscow. Radio broadcasts (three programs) totaled 42 hours daily, and television broadcasts, 19 hours daily.

S. I. BORTNIK

Moldavian written literature was preceded by a rich oral folk tradition, including poetry associated with holiday and family rituals (Plugushorul ), tales and heroic epics, of which the most famous are Gidra, Toma Alimosh, Bogatyr’ Gruia Grozovan, Mikhul Kopilul, Kodrianu, and Korbia, and historical songs, such as Duka Vode, Buzhor, and Tobultok. Folk legends, proverbs, sayings, lyric doina songs, and ballads were also popular, including The Sun and the Moon, The Rich Man and the Poor Man, and Dolka. The most important lyric-epic folk poem is the ballad Mioritsa.

The first written works appeared in the late ninth century. They were written in a Moldavian variant of Church Slavonic (Middle Bulgarian), the official language of the church and state and the literary language until the 17th century. A considerable body of religious and historical literature was written in this language, notably The Life of St. John the New and several sermons by G. Tsamblak (Tamblac), the bishop of Moldavia from 1401 to 1403; the anonymous chronicles of the 15th and 16th centuries; and the 16th-century chronicles of Makarii (Macarie), Azarii (Azarie), and Evfimii (Eftimie). The first Moldavian book, Precepts (sermons on the Gospels) by Metropolitan Varlaam (1590–1657), was published in 1643. Varlaam’s successor, Metropolitan Dosifei (Dosoftei, 1624—93) translated the Psalms into Moldavian in verse. Dosifei was also the source of the famous quotation “Light comes to us from Moscow.”

During the 17th century the Moldavian chroniclers Grigorii Ureke (Ureche, 15907–1647?), Miron Kostin (Costin, 1633–91), and Ion Nekulche (Neculce, 1672–1745) compiled annals containing a wealth of material on the history, culture, ethnography, and language of medieval Moldavia. Kostin also wrote a work on the origin of the Moldavians and a philosophical narrative poem entitled The Life of the World, and Nekulche compiled the first collection of Moldavian oral legends.

Nikolai Milesku (Milescu, 1636–1708) was a prominent Moldavian cultural figure who lived in Russia, where he served in the Posol’skii Prikaz (Foreign Office) from 1671. After heading the tsar’s mission to China from 1675 to 1678, he wrote A Travel Diary and Description of China.

In the 18th century Moldavian cultural development culminated in the writings of D. Kantemir (Cantemir, 1673–1723), a man of encyclopedic learning, a major humanitarian writer, a prominent politician and statesman, and the father of the Rus-sian poet A. D. Kantemir. Among his most important works, written in Moldavian, Russian, and Latin, were the allegorical novel A Hieroglyphic History (1705), A Historical, Geographical, and Political Description of Moldavia (1714), A History of the Rise and Fall of the Ottoman Empire (1717), A Chronicle of the Antiquity of the Roman-Moldavian-Walachians (1722), and A History of the Muslim Religion (1722). Toward the end of the century, the lyric poems of Ion Kontakuzino (Cantacuzino) and Matei Milo appeared, and many literary works were translated from Russian, French, and other languages.

The incorporation of Bessarabia into Russia in 1812 stimulated the region’s economic and cultural development. The revolutionary ideas of the Decembrists spread, and the poems of A. S. Pushkin, imbued with a love of liberty, circulated widely. Pushkin’s stay in Kishinev subsequently had a strong impact on the development of Moldavian literature. Among outstanding Moldavian writers of the first half of the 19th century were A. Khyzhdeu (A. Haşdeu) (1811–74), who wrote patriotic poems in Russian and advocated Moldavian-Russian-Ukrainian friendship, and the poets K. Konaki (Conachi, 1778–1849) and K. Stamati (Stamate, 1786–1869), both of whom contributed to the development of various literary genres. The multifaceted activity of G. Asaki (Asachi, 1788–1869), educator, poet, and prose writer, left a strong imprint on the national culture. Through his efforts, the first newspaper in Moldavian, Albino Românească (The Rumanian Bee), was founded in 1829.

The magazine Dacia literară (Literary Dacia), founded in 1840, called for the creation of an indigenous literature based on the rich traditions of national history and oral folk literature. The writers of the period of the bourgeois-democratic Revolution of 1848 sought to implement the magazine’s manifesto. The fables of A. Donich (Donici, 1806–66), based on folk tales, the poems on social themes and satirical comedies of V. Aleksandri (Alecsandri, 1821–90), the realistic prose of K. Negrutstsi (Negruzzi, 1808–68), and the passionate publicistic and critical writings of A. Russo (1819–59) and M. Kogelnichanu (Kogalniceanu, 1817–91) constitute the milestones of Moldavian literature in the mid-19th century.

Moldavia’s progressive writers—notably the writer, historian, and philologist B. P. Khashdeu (Haşdeu, 1838–1907), who was educated in Russia and who promoted Russo-Moldavian literary and scholarly ties—frequently defended the interests of the common people. An adherent of the progressive tendencies in romanticism, Khashdeu also helped establish critical realism in Moldavian literature. Historical drama, represented by Khashdeu’s verse play Rdzvan From Vidro. (1867), was further developed by Aleksandri, who wrote several verse dramas.

Moldavian literature of the second half of the 19th century was dominated by I. Kriange (Creanga, 1837–89) and M. Eminesku (Eminescu, 1850–89). Kriange’s works constitute one of the highest achievements of national realistic prose. His Tales and Childhood Recollections reveal a democratic outlook and a sincere love for the working people.

The crowning achievement of 19th-century Moldavian and Rumanian literature is the poetry of M. Eminesku, a leading representative of late European romanticism. His poetry reflects the complexity and contradictions of the period and the humanitarian ideals and hopes of an artist protesting against coercion and social injustice.

The magazine Contemporanul (The Contemporary), published between 1881 and 1891, influenced literary developments in the last quarter of the 19th century and helped strengthen Moldavian-Russian literary ties. The magazine’s ideological and aesthetic platform was formulated by K. Dobrodzhanu-Geria (Dobrogeanu-Gherea, 1855–1920), a materialist critic from Russia. The realistic sketches and short stories of V. Kresesku (1850–1917) were first published in the magazine. Z. RalliArbore (1848–1933), noted for his memoirs Prison and Exile and Exile, was an outstanding Narodnik (Populist) writer.

During the Revolution of 1905–07 in Russia, the bourgeois-democratic newspaper Basarabia (1906–07) was published in Bessarabia. Among its regular contributors were several gifted writers. The poets A. Mateevich (1888–1917) and T. Roman (1887–1921) portrayed the hard life of the working peasantry and extolled the beauty of their native language. The life and work of Moldavians, and their rich folk literature inspired M. Gorky, V. Korolenko, M. Kotsiubinskii, and other writers who visited Moldavia.

Engendered by the October Revolution and inspired by the ideals of creating a new socialist society, Soviet Moldavian literature developed, continuing the democratic traditions of the national literature. The majority of Soviet Moldavian writers were working-class and rural contributors to newspapers and magazines. Their first poems, sketches, and short stories appeared in the newspaper Plugarul roshu (The Red Plowman, 1924), published in Moldavian, and in the magazine Moldova literare (Literary Moldavia, 1928), which was superseded by Oktiabr’ (October), in 1932. Outstanding novellas and novels of this period include Grandfather Goritse (1926) and At Dawn (1928) by D. Milev (1887–1944) and The Party Calls (1935) and The Treasure (1936) by N. Markov (1903^1). Noteworthy narrative poems are The Valutse Oak (1928) by T. Malai (1890–1942) and TirospoP (1932) by L. Kornianu (1909–57). Other important works are the short stories and novellas of I. Kanna (born 1902) and L. Barskii (born 1909) and the poetry collections of K. Koshereu (1861–1934), M. Andriesku (1898–1934), and N. Kabak (1913–41). Reflecting the socialist reality of the 1920’s and 1930’s, these works depicted the heroic exploits of Soviet people during the Civil War (1918–20), the organization of the first kolkhozes in the republic, the cultural revolution, and the creation of the new Soviet man. A number of writers turned to the past, portraying the life of the toiling masses of Bessarabia under bourgeois-landowner oppression and their struggle for reunification with the Soviet fatherland.

In Bessarabia, which had been forcibly separated from Soviet Russia in 1918 by the Kingdom of Rumania, a group of writers lived and worked under the harsh conditions of a bourgeois-landowner system until 1940. The writers E. Bukov (born 1909) and Andrei Lupan (born 1912) were active in the underground revolutionary movement and the antifascist struggle. Bukov’s collections of poems The Sun Speaks (1937) and China (1938) are an important contribution to the development of proletarian poetry in the 1930’s. A number of other democratic writers also made their literary debut at this time, including Dzh. Meniuk (born 1918), B. Istru (born 1914), T. Nenchev (1913–41), L. Delianu (1911–67), N. Kostenko (born 1913), A. Robot (1916–41), G. Adam (1914–46), Vera Panfil (1905–61), and D. Vetrov (1913–52).

The formation of the Moldavian SSR in 1940 presented new opportunities for the development of Moldavian literature. From the very outbreak of the Great Patriotic War (1941–45), the writers of Moldavia stood in the front ranks of fighters against the fascist invaders. Among the writers who served in the Soviet Army were P. Krucheniuk (born 1917), F. Ponomar’(1919–68), la. Kutkovetskii (1907–71), P. Darienko (born 1923), S. Shliakhu (born 1915), A. Lipkan (born 1908), and L. Barskii. During the war years, poetry and publicistic writing flourished. Poems and essays by Bukov, Istru, Andrei Lupan, Meniuk, I. D. Chobanu (born 1910), and Delianu were published in the newspaper Moldova sochialiste (Socialist Moldavia), issued in Moscow between 1942 and 1944, and in the leading newspapers and journals of the USSR; they were also broadcast over the radio. Russian translations of Bukov’s verse collections I See You, Moldavia (1942) and Spring on the Dnestr (1944) were published in Moscow.

The postwar years saw the development of all genres of Moldavian literature, although for a long time poetry held the leading place. The long narrative poems Andriesh (1946) and My Country (1947) by Bukov, The Forgotten Village (1940) and Face to Face (1945) by Andrei Lupan, Pogorna (1947) and Spring in the Carpathians (1955) by Istru, Dawn Song (1948) by Meniuk, Immortal Youth (1950) by Delianu, A Mother’s Word (1952) by Krucheniuk, and Friendship (1948) by Ponomar’ portrayed the struggle against the fascist invaders, collectivization in the republic’s right-bank regions, and the struggle for peace. These poems played a significant role in firmly establishing socialist realism in Moldavian literature. Lyric poetry, which also flourished during these years, was notable for its profound insight into the nature of reality and for its philosophical interpretation of phenomena. Moldavian poets have sought new forms and new means of expression, as may be seen from the narrative poems mentioned above and from the lyric poetry of P. Darienko, I. Baltsan(born 1923), V. Roshka(born 1925), K. Kondri (born 1920), P. Zadnipru (born 1927), A. Busuiok (born 1928), A. Guzhel’ (born 1922), V. Teleuke (born 1933), G. Vieru (born 1935), P. Botsu (born 1933), A. Chibotaru (born 1935), E. Lotianu (born 1936), and L. Lamian (born 1935).

There have been notable achievements in fiction, drama, and children’s literature. Among widely acclaimed novellas and novels are Leaves of Sorrow (1957) by I. Drutse (born 1928), Kodry (books 1–2, 1954–57) by I. Chobanu (born 1927), The Soldier Behind the Plow (1957) and The Lower Edge (1962) by Shliakhu, People and Destinies (1958) by A. Shalar’ (born 1923), Wind inMy Face ( 1957) and Where Are Your Plowmen, Land? (1963)by Anna Lupan (born 1922), Snowstorm (1960) by E. Damian (born 1924), Alone in the Face of Love (1966) by Busuiok, and The Cry of the Swifts (1966) by V. Beshliaga (born 1931). Fine short stories and sketches have been written by the writers mentioned above, as well as by Meniuk, Bukov, Roshka, V. Maleva (born 1926), V. Vasilake (born 1926), A. Marinat (born 1924), and R. Lungu (born 1928).

Important plays of the postwar period include Light (1948) by Andrei Lupan, The Seething Danube (1957) by Bukov, The Wheel of Time (1959) by Anna Lupan, Birds That Cannot Fly (1957) by R. Portnoi (1908–65), The Bitterness of Love (1958) by Kornianu, Casa mare (1960) and Birds of Our Youth (1972) by Drutse, Children and Apples (1961) by Kondri, and the works of G. Malarchuk (born 1934), Busuiok, and I. Podolianu (born 1929).

A number of poetic and prose works attest to the high artistic level achieved by Moldavian literature in the 1960’s and early 1970’s. Among them are Chobanu’s novel Bridges (1965), the first part of Drutse’s novel The Burden of Our Goodness (1968, originally published in 1963 as Steppe Ballads), and several collections of poems, including Bukov’s The Present Day, the Future Day (1965), Andrei Lupan’s Law of Hospitality (1966), Botsu’s Continents (1966), L. Damian’s Roots (1966), Vieru’s Poems (1965), Teleuke’s Deer Island (1966), and A. Chibotaru’s Steps (1970).

The publication and study of Moldavian classics, and translations into Moldavian of the best works of Russian literature, the literatures of the peoples of the USSR, and masterpieces of world literature have exerted a positive influence on the development of Moldavian literature. Excellent translations have been made by I. Kretsu (born 1922), A. Kozmesku (born 1922), P. Starostin (born 1924), and lu. Barzhanskii (born 1922). Among prolific authors writing in Russian are the prose writers L. Mishchenko (born 1924), S. Pas’ko (born 1914), and G. Uspenskii (born 1905) and the poets K. Shishkan (born 1933), N. Savostin (born 1926), V. Izmailov (born 1926), and S. Burlaka (born 1923). The foremost Gagauz writers are D. Karachoban (born 1933) and D. Tanasoglu (born 1922). Moldavia’s critics and literary scholars have published the first volume of a history of Moldavian literature prior to the October Revolution, a survey of Soviet Moldavian literature, and monographs devoted to the classics and contemporary Moldavian writers. Many works by Moldavian writers have been translated into the languages of the peoples of the USSR and into foreign languages.

The Writers’ Union of the Moldavian SSR was established in 1940. The First Congress of the Union was held in 1954, the Second Congress in 1958, the Third Congress in 1965, and the Fourth Congress in 1971.

REFERENCES

KH. G. KORBU and S. S. CHIBOTARU

Architecture. Settlements of the Tripol’e culture, dating from the third and early second millennia B.C., have been excavated in Moldavia, as well as remains of the Thracian culture (from the ninth century B.C.), the Cherniakhovo culture (second to fourth centuries A.D.), and the culture of Slavic tribes (from the sixth century A.D.). The Slavic cities of the tenth and eleventh centuries had fortifications made of wood and earth or stone and earth. From the mid-14th century, architecture flourished in the Principality of Moldavia. During the reign of Stephen III the Great, cities comprising fortresses and their surrounding settlements expanded rapidly and were enclosed by walls. Wood and earth fortifications were replaced by stone ones. Fortresses with massive towers and arched gateways were built in Soroki and Bendery in the 16th century.

There developed an indigenous style of Orthodox church with a single nave and no cupola. It was divided into three main sections: a narthex, a central part, and an apse (Uspenie Church in Kaushany, 16th to 18th centuries), or three apses, forming a trefoil (Uspenie Church in the Kapriany Monastery, mid-16th century). From the 15th and 16th centuries, the churches included burial vaults with niches in the walls. A “Moldavian system” of roofing was devised, consisting of two tiers of arches supporting a drum (Church of the Rud’ Monastery, 1774). Church exteriors were decorated with shallow niches and small arched bands. Wooden churches of the 18th century usually had a rectangular or octagonal frame with a tent-shaped roof. In the 14th and 15th centuries civic buildings, such as palaces and baths, were initially made of wood or beaten earth and later of stone. The ruins of a castle built of dressed stone and brick in the 14th and 15th centuries have survived in Staryi Orkhei. By the late 18th century a distinctive type of urban and village house had evolved, usually consisting of three sections and often having a porch. The forms of Russian classicism influenced Moldavian architecture. Under Turkish domination, which lasted from the 15th through the 18th century, many noteworthy structures were destroyed. Outstanding examples of 16th- and 17th-century architecture include the cave monasteries in Sakharna and Zhabka and the church near the village of Butucheny.

After Bessarabia’s incorporation into Russia in 1812, its cities grew rapidly. Professional architects designed buildings and ensembles in the classical style, for example, the cathedral in Kishinev (1830–35, architect A. I. Mel’nikov), the column commemorating the battle of Kagula (1845, architect F. K. Boffo), and the Tsyganeshty Monastery (1846). In the 19th and early 20th centuries single-story residences surrounded by gardens predominated in urban architecture. Imposing public buildings and churches of stone and brick were erected, notably the Greek Church in Kishinev, built in the late 19th century by the architect A. I. Bernardatstsi. Parks were laid out on rural estates, of which an outstanding example is the TsauP Park near Tyrnovo (1902–15). Sometimes the estate owners commissioned churches, such as the one in the village of Verkhnie Kugureshty, Floreshty Raion, built between 1912 and 1916 by the architect A. V. Shchusev.

During Bessarabia’s occupation by Rumania in the 1920’s and 1930’s, many private homes were built in the art nouveau style. In the Moldavian ASSR cities were rapidly built up, and the architectural style tended toward the restrained use of classical forms. During the fascist occupation from 1941 to 1944, Moldavian cities were devastated. In the course of rebuilding and modernizing the cities, their layout changed as new industrial enterprises, social and cultural institutions, and schools were constructed. Urban areas were divided into zones, main thoroughfares were built, and multistory public buildings and apartment houses were constructed using local light-colored limestone. In the 1940’s and early 1950’s buildings were decorated with motifs from classical and folk architecture, ceramics, and stone carving.

Since 1955 residential microdistricts have been built on the outskirts of cities, such as those in the Boiukany, Ryshkanovka, and Botanika sections of Kishinev, and standardized houses of local limestone blocks and reinforced-concrete slabs have been constructed. Since the early 1960’s spatial representations have become more picturesque, facades have acquired balconies and loggias, and more color has been used. Standardized designs have been employed not only in large-scale residential construction but also in public buildings in cities and villages. Major public buildings have been designed by R. E. Kurts, V. A. Voitsekhovskii, V. P. Mednek, A. V. Kolotovkin, and S. M. Shoikhet. F. P. Naumov is noted for his designs of small-scale architectural works (environmental furnishings). Industrial buildings, schools, clubs, hospitals, stadiums, and houses of rest are being constructed in rural areas. Traditional village houses of wood and stone usually consist of three main sections—a living area, an entrance hall, and a parlor—and have a porch or gallery. They are richly decorated with carvings and paintings. New types of houses with large windows and verandas are also being built, as well as two-story apartment houses. A number of memorial complexes dedicated to the heroes of the Great Patriotic War have been built. Public buildings are decorated with mosaics and reliefs. The Architects’ Union of the Moldavian SSR was founded in Kishinev in 1945.

Art. Works of art from the Upper Paleolithic (a staff made of antlers with a small figure carved in relief) and the Neolithic (ceramics decorated in various ways) have been discovered in Moldavia. Ceramics of the Tripol’e culture include vessels with intricate designs and figurines of people and animals. Metal ornaments and implements and clay and bronze statues dating from the second and first millennia B.C. have been found. The pottery and gold, silver, and bronze fibulae, earrings, bracelets, and buckles dating from the first half of the first millennium A.D. are of a high quality.

The Slavs made figurines of gods and animals and pottery. As the culture of the ancient Russian state spread, jewelry-making developed, including filigree, granulation, embossing, and engraving, as well as wood and bone carving. In the 13th and 14th centuries decorative applied art was influenced by the handicrafts of Byzantium and the Muslim East. Manuscripts of the 15th and 16th centuries were richly decorated with rhythmic floral designs and miniatures with harmonious colors. In the 17th century miniatures became more expressive, with stylized flower patterns resembling embroidery. The Uspenie Church in Kaushany contains 18th-century paintings, including portraits of donors. In these paintings, both late Byzantine and Balkan traditions fuse with elements of folk art. In icons from the late 18th and early 19th centuries the modeling of the face often contrasts with the two-dimensionality of the drapery. Delicate colors and lavish use of silver and gold characterize the embroidery of the 14th through 17th centuries. Napless rugs with contrasting colors in the field and border and with patterns employing geometrized vases, branches, and flowers were produced in the 18th and 19th centuries.

During the 19th century secular art, primarily portraiture, developed. The portraits executed by I. Kraus in the mid-19th century show the influence of religious art. In the second half of the century professional artists appeared, and exhibits were organized. A drawing school was founded in 1887 (in 1940 it was reorganized as the Republic Art School). Under the influence of the peredvizhniks (the “wanderers,” a progressive art movement), realistic landscapes, genre pictures, and portraits were painted in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by such artists as V. F. Okushko and E. M. Maleshevskaia. The art of the Moldavian ASSR, represented by A. F. Foinitskii’s paintings and E. N. Merega’s posters and illustrations, developed along the same lines as Ukrainian and Russian art. Although the art of occupied Bessarabia was to some extent influenced by modernist trends, the leading artists developed the principles of realism. A. M. Plamadiala created monuments and sculptural groups depicting everyday scenes. M. E. Gamburd painted scenes from peasant life, A. I. Bal’er executed portraits and still-lifes, and Sh. G. Kogan was known for his etchings.

During the Great Patriotic War (1941–45), L. I. Dubinovskii and Gamburd produced patriotic works. In the postwar years Moldavian artists have depicted the socialist transformation of the republic, its historical past, and the spiritual makeup of the Soviet man. Sculpture is represented by L. I. Dubinovskii’s allegorical and genre compositions and K. S. Kobizeva’s poetic depictions of Soviet women. In painting, the canvases of V. G. Russu-Chobanu, M. G. Greku, I. D. Vieru, G. V. Sainchuk, V. D. Zazerskaia, and N. I. Bakhchevan combine generalization with an original interpretation of folk decorative traditions. Also noteworthy are the historical paintings and watercolors of L. P. Grigorashenko; the genre paintings of I. D. Zhumatii and A. G. Baranovich; the portraits of K. D. Kitaika, G. V. Sainchuk, O. D. Orlova, and V. V. Tret’iachenko; and the landscapes of A. A. Vasil’ev, I. S. Ershov, I. F. Stepanov, E. D. Romanesku, and M. P. Petrik. In the graphic arts, the illustrations and other works of I. T. Bogdesko, B. lu. Nesvedov, L. G. Beliaev, G. N. Vrabie, I. V. Taburtsy, and V. G. Koval’ and the satirical drawings of B. N. Shirokorad have become well known. The painters V. A. Obukh, M. A. Buria, and A. A. David, and the sculptors B. P. Marchenko, I. D. Kitman, and N. M. Gorenyshev excel in monumental art. A. E. Shubin, K. I. Lodzeiskii, N. A. Alenfev, and A. I. Mater are Moldavia’s leading stage designers, and S. S. Chokolov, F. M. Nutovich, N. I. Kotsofan, P. A. Bespoisnyi, V. E. Nechaeva, and V. K. Poliakova have produced outstanding works of decorative applied art. Stone carving, woodcarving, wood painting, and embroidery continue to be popular folk crafts. Napless rugs with contrasting borders, colored or black grounds, and geometric or floral patterns are woven. Ceramics include wine vessels, jars, and bowls, either painted or with an incised design, and black unglazed pottery with a glossy design. There are a number of folk handicraft workshops and artels.

The Artists’ Union of the Moldavian SSR was founded in 1945 in Kishinev and its bylaws were ratified in 1948.

REFERENCES

M. IA. LIVSHITS and I. S. EL’TMAN

The development of Moldavia’s musical culture is closely linked with that of the neighboring Slavic, Oriental, and other peoples. Moldavian folk music is based on a seven-tone diatonic scale, although older songs use incomplete pentatonic scales. Folk songs are primarily monophonic, but two-part songs are also encountered, especially in the regions bordering on the Ukraine. The oldest songs are work and ritual songs, including carols, funeral laments (bocet), and wedding songs, such as the “Bride’s Lament” and songs sung at wedding feasts. Songs also accompanied the agricultural and exorcising rituals known as paparudă, caloianul, and călu§ul. Ballads and historical songs reflect the people’s struggle against foreign invaders and the boyar landowners. The heroes of ballads are most often folk haiduk avengers.

An important place in Moldavian musical folklore is occupied by songs of everyday life (lyrical, humorous, and drinking songs), as well as by songs of social protest (haiduk, batrak [farm laborer], and recruits’ songs). The vocal and instrumental doinas (lyrical folk songs), which originated as pastoral songs, became especially popular. The urban romance evolved in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Under the influence of the Decembrists, the raznochinlsy (intellectuals of no definite class), and, later, the Russian proletariat, revolutionary songs developed in the 19th century. There are numerous folk dances (See below: Dance and ballet). Among Moldavian folk wind instruments are the fluer and caval (small and large shepherds’ flutes), the nai (a kind of panpipe), the cimpoi (bagpipes), and buchium, or trembita (alphorn). Other popular folk instruments are the kobza, a plucked stringed instrument; cymbals; and the drimba (Jew’s harp). The violin has long been a folk instrument, and since the 19th century the trumpet, clarinet, trombone, and double-bass have been included in folk orchestras, called tarafe. In addition to folk songs and dances, tarafe perform instrumental fantasias —virtuoso programmatic pieces, such as the popular fantasia Chokyrliia (Ciocirlia, The Lark). The traditions of Moldavian folk music have been passed down by the leutary (lăntari), singers and instrumentalists whose name derives from the lăută, or alăută, an ancient instrument resembling the lute. The most famous leutary of the 19th and 20th centuries have been Barbu Leutaru (Lăutaru), lanku Perzha, Kostake Marin, George Kheraru, Kostake Parno, Aleksandru Lemish, Timotei Niaga, and George Murga.

During the Middle Ages professional music developed in monasteries, at princely courts, and among soldiers. After Bessarabia’s incorporation into Russia, professional music developed more rapidly. During the first half of the 19th century concerts were given for the most part in the homes of large landowners, such as the boyar Varfolomei and Z. Ralli. In 1818 the first public theatrical performances with music were presented in Kishinev.

The strengthening of Moldavia’s musical ties with Russia and the Ukraine in the second half of the 19th century stimulated musical life. Russian and foreign opera companies, choral groups, and performers toured Moldavia, and V. Gutor, A. Antonovskii, and G. Muzichesku (Muzicescu) studied in St. Petersburg and Moscow. Local musicians also gave concerts. The Harmony Society of Music Lovers was organized in Kishinev in 1880, and the Kishinev branch of the Russian Musical Society, headed by the composer and pianist V. I. Rebikov, was founded in 1899. A state-supported music school was opened in 1900, and private music schools also provided training. Interest in Moldavian folk music grew in the 19th century, and the musicologists F. Ruzhitskii, K. Mikuli, and T. Burada included folk melodies in their collections.

Among the founders of professional Moldavian music was the composer, folklorist, and chorus master G. Muzichesku, who wrote numerous choral works. M. A. Berezovskii and A. V. lakovlev wrote and conducted choral works in the early 20th century. During Bessarabia’s occupation (1918–40) musical life developed through the efforts of music lovers. Local and visiting musicians gave concerts of chamber and symphonic music and staged operas. V. A. Bulychev contributed to the spread of music education, and M. K. Byrke collected and arranged folk music.

After the formation of the Moldavian ASSR in 1924, systematic efforts were made to develop Moldavian professional musical culture. The Doina Chorus was organized in 1930; the Moldavian Theater of Music and Drama, in 1939; and the Symphony Orchestra, in 1935. Numerous amateur ensembles also sprang up. A section of Moldavian composers was formed within the Composers’ Union of the Ukrainian SSR in Odessa in 1937. Moldavian composers, notably D. G. Gershfel’d and V. L. Poliakov, wrote primarily songs and instrumental pieces. Choral arrangements of Moldavian folk songs and various works based on Moldavian music were written by the Ukrainian composers N. N. Vilinskii, S. D. Orfeev, L. S. Gurov, and K. F. Dan’-kevich. V. L. Poliakov composed the first symphonic works on Moldavian themes—the symphonic poem Moldavia and the Suite, both written in 1938.

After the formation of the Moldavian SSR in 1940, new opportunities arose for the development of Moldavian musical culture. A large number of composers and performers from Bessarabia, including S. Niaga, E. K. Koka, S. V. Zlatov, K. N. Zlatov, L. la. Lipkovskaia, M. la. Pester, lu. M. Guz, M. K. Byrke, and V. A. Bulychev, joined the ranks of Soviet Moldavian musicians, and Kishinev became the musical center of Moldavia. In 1940 a union of composers, philharmonic society, a radio committee, a conservatory, a ten-year music school, and a republic house of folk art were formed out of previously existing groups. During the postwar years, new performing groups were organized, such as the Fluerash Folk Orchestra (1946) and the Mugurel Folk-Song Ensemble (1967). Performing groups were also established under the auspices of the Committee for Television and Radio Broadcasting of the Moldavian SSR, including an orchestra (1964), a choral group (1966), a string quartet (1966), and the Folklore Ensemble (1968). The Moldavian Theater of Opera and Ballet was established in 1957, and new music schools have been opened.

Major musical-dramatic, instrumental, and vocal works have been written in the postwar years. Oustanding operas include D. G. Gershfel’d’s semilegendary Grozovan (1956) about the haiduk struggle against Turkish oppression, A. G. Styrcha’s heroic-revolutionary Domnika’s Heart (1960, third version was staged in 1970 as Heroic Ballad ), G. Niaga’s lyric-dramatic Glira (1974), and Z. M. Tkach’s children’s opera The Nanny Goat With Three Kids (1967). The leading composer of symphonic works is S. Niaga, best known for his Poem About the Dnestr (1943) and Concerto for Violin and Orchestra (1943). Niaga also wrote the first significant vocal-symphonic works— the cantatas Stephen the Great (1945) and Jubilee (1949), and the oratorio Song of Rebirth (1951). E. K. Koka composed the first Moldavian string quartets (1940, 1948) and the symphonic poem Kodrul (1948). His Doina noue for voice and folk orchestra has become especially popular. Among other important symphonic composers are L. S. Gurov, V. L. Poliakov, E. L. Lazarev, S. M. Lobel’, G. Niaga, and P. B. Rivilis. Noteworthy chamber works have been composed by Gurov, Styrcha, Lobel’, V. G. Zagorskii, G. Niaga, and Rivilis, and popular romances and other songs have been written by Styrcha, Sh. B. Aranov, S. B. Shapiro, S. V. Lungul, D. E. Georgitse, E. D. Doga, D. G. Fedov, and N. G. Kiosa. Tkach is a well-known composer of children’s music. Eminent Moldavian musicologists and folk-lorists include L. A. Aksenova, B. la. Kotliarov, A. S. Sofronov, Z. Z. Stoliar, Tkach, G. S. Chaikovskii, and N. I. Shekhtman.

Among Moldavia’s leading performing artists are the singers T. S. Cheban and M. L. Bieshu (People’s Artists of the USSR) and V. S. Savitskaia and P. A. Botezat (People’s Artists of the Moldavian SSR); the folk singer N. Sulak (People’s Artist of the Moldavian SSR); the conductor T. I. Gurtovoi (People’s Artist of the USSR); the choral conductor V. A. Garshtia (People’s Artist of the Moldavian SSR), and the violinist C. A. Lunkevich (People’s Artist of the Moldavian SSR). The republic’s principal musical organizations are the Moldavian Theater of Opera and Ballet, the A. S. Pushkin Moldavian Music and Drama Theater, and the Philharmonic Society, which includes the Doina Chorus, a symphony orchestra, the Fluerash Folk Orchestra, the Mugurel Folk-Song Ensemble, and the Leutary Vocal and Instrumental Ensemble. In addition, there are the chorus, orchestra, string quartet, and folk orchestra of the Committee for Television and Radio Broadcasting of the’ Moldavian SSR. The republic has three higher music schools (in Kishinev, Tiraspol’, and Bel’tsy), a secondary music boarding school, named in honor of E. K. Koka, and approximately 50 children’s music schools. Music festivals play an important part in the republic’s musical life.

REFERENCES

L. A. AKSENOVA and N. I. SHEKHTMAN

Moldavian folk dances have preserved ancient dance traditions. The most popular dance is the hora. Up to the early 19th century the hora was not only a type of dance but also a rural holiday. Since then, in most of Bessarabia, the word “hora” has come to denote a round dance in which the dancers lock arms. Beginning in the late 19th century the zhok became popular; there is a zhck betrynesk, or old people’s dance, and a zhok de glume, or humorous dance. The word “zhok” also denotes a rural folk festival.

Moldavian folk dances are divided into ritual and “everyday” dances. Among the best-known ritual dances are the kelushar\\ dregaika (both now performed as everyday dances, generally on the stage), and various wedding dances, such as the ostropetzul, zestria, and dansul miresel The everyday dances are further subdivided into plotless dances and subject dances, or dances that convey a theme. Among plotless dances are the hora, syrba, moldoveniaska, betuta, and bryul. Subject dances, of which there are a great many, include work dances, such as the poama (grapes), sfredelushul (gimlet), tabekeriaska (dance of the tanners), and zhokul ferarilor (dance of the blacksmiths); heroic dances, for example, the khaiduchaska and voinichaska; dances for women, of which the most popular are paraskitsa and tserenkutsa (peasant girl); and dances about natural phenomena, for example, vyntul (the wind).

Moldavian folk dances are usually accompanied by an orchestra (taraf), and formerly most of them were accompanied by singing (mititika, elenutsa). The most common meters are 2/4, 3/8, 6/8, and 7/16. Many dances, especially those for men, are accompanied by strigatur’ (short poems on a topical or humorous theme) and by kiuitur’ (cries and shouts). In 1936 a dance group was formed in Tiraspol’ within the Moldavian Chorus. In 1940 the group moved to Kishinev, where in 1945 it was reorganized as the Folk Dance Ensemble of the Moldavian SSR. In 1955 it was awarded the title of Honored Group of the Republic, and in 1958 it was renamed Zhok. Among the choreographers who have played an important role in the development of the ensemble are L. G. Leonardi, who directed the ensemble from 1939 to 1948, with interruptions; Honored Artist of the Moldavian SSR N. A. Bolotov, who directed the group from 1948 to 1954, with interruptions; People’s Artist of the Moldavian SSR V. K. Kurbet, who has directed the ensemble since 1958; People’s Artist of the USSR I. A. Moiseev; Honored Art Worker of the RSFSR L. V. lakobson (Yakobson); and V. A. Varkovitskii. Sh. Aranov, A. P. Kamenetskii, and V. A. Rotaru have served as the ensemble’s music directors. Soloists have included People’s Artists of the Moldavian SSR N. V. Pshenichnaia, S. S. Mokanu, I. D. Furnika, P. F. Andreichenko, and T. D. Usach. In 1970 a folk-dance group was created to perform with the Fluerash Folk Orchestra.

A professional ballet theater developed only after the establishment of Soviet power. The first Moldavian ballet was Poliakov’s An Old Tale, first performed in 1938 by the Moldavian Drama Theater (later renamed the Moldavian Music and Drama Theater). In 1947–48 the theater staged B. V. Asafev’s The Peasant Lady and S. N. Vasilenko’s Mirandolina. The subsequent development of ballet is associated with the organization in 1957 of the Moldavian Theater of Opera and Ballet, whose early repertoire included Asafev’s The Fountain of Bakhchisarai (1957), P. Hertel’s La Fille mal gardee (1957), and P. I. Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake (1958). The theater devoted much attention to the production of national works. In 1959 the choreographer V. V. Boichenko staged L. L. Kogan’s The Sisters, depicting life in a contemporary Moldavian village, and in 1960 the choreographer Varkovitskii staged V. G. Zagorskii’s Dawn, about the Moldavian people’s heroic struggle against their enslavers and Bessarabia’s reunification with the Soviet Union. E. L. Lazarev’s ballet The Shattered Sword (1960), based on themes from M. Eminesku’s narrative poem Strigoii (Vurdalaki), was staged by the choreographers S. V. Drechin and N. V. Danilova. The Moldavian ballet company introduced Antony and Cleopatra (1965), based on Shakespeare’s tragedy, and the one-act ballet Arabesques (1970) by Lazarev with choreography by M. N. Lazareva.

The repertoire of the Moldavian Theater of Opera and Ballet includes K. Karaev’s Path of Thunder (1961), A. Adam’s Giselle (1963), Tchaikovsky’s The Sleeping Beauty (1965), S. S. Prokofiev’s Cinderella (1971), and Carmen Suite (1971) to music by R. K. Shchedrin after G. Bizet. Among outstanding ballet dancers who have performed in the theater are People’s Artist of the Moldavian SSR and Honored Artist of the RSFSR V. P. Tikhonov and Honored Artist of the Moldavian SSR P. L. Leonardi. In 1973 the company’s leading dancers were People’s Artists of the Moldavian SSR G. A. Melent’eva and P. N. Fesenko; Honored Artists of the Moldavian SSR R. A. Potekhina, M. I. Kaftanat, and K. A. Ocadchaia; and Honored Artist of the RSFSR G. P. lanson.

REFERENCES

E. A. KOROLEVA

Moldavia’s theatrical art has its origin in ancient folk rituals and games. During the 14th century, performances were given by various court and traveling companies, such as the Pelivan’, Meskerich’, and Suitar’. At the turn of the 19th century, several types of folk theater, incorporating much music and dance, became popular. These folk theaters were called Irozii, Pepusharii, Nunta Tsereniaske, and Teatrul Khaiduchesk. The preconditions for a national theater arose in the early 19th century, when the centuries-old ties with Russia were strengthened. Dramatic works were written, and G. Asaki, the founder of the Moldavian theater, staged the first play, the pastoral Mitril and Khloia by Florian and Gesner in 1816. Asaki also organized the Philharmonic Dramatic Conservatory (1836–38) in lasi, where Moldavian actors were trained. In 1840 the first Moldavian professional theater opened in Ia§i. The plays of V. Aleksandri, M. Kogelnichanu, K. Negrutstsi, A. Russo, B. P. Khashdeu, and K. Stamati-Churia facilitated the development of a national theater. M. Millo laid the foundation for a realistic school of acting.

From the mid-19th century the Moldavian theater developed within the mainstream of contemporary theatrical trends: classical traits coexisted with romantic trends and Enlightenment realism with critical realism. Russian companies were permanently established in Kishinev, and famous Russian and Ukrainian actors appeared in the city on tour. The occupation of Bessarabia in 1918 retarded the development of the theater. In the part of Moldavia that was incorporated into Soviet Russia, theatrical arts developed rapidly after the formation of the Moldavian ASSR. In 1927 the Moldavian Drama Theater was established in Balta, and in 1930 its actors joined a drama studio in Tiraspol’ headed by A. I. Adashev and N. Panasevich-Remiz (in 1932 the studio was transfered to Odessa). In 1933 the Moldavian Drama Theater opened in Tiraspol’; in 1939 it was reorganized as the Moldavian Music and Drama Theater. The Ukrainian Theater existed from 1930 to 1940, and the Russian Theater was founded in 1935 (since 1959 it has been called the A. P. Chekhov Russian Theater). After the formation of the Moldavian SSR, the Moldavian Music and Drama Theater and the Russian Theater were transferred to Kishinev. Russian and foreign classics were staged, as well as works by Soviet, including Moldavian, playwrights. The plays of M. Gorky, K. A. Trenev, V. M. Kirshon, A. E. Korneichuk, I. K. Mikitenko, L. M. Barskii, and S. R. Lekhtsir were performed. Moldavian theatrical art was enriched by the experience of the Soviet multinational theater and drama.

After the Great Patriotic War (1941–45), during the second half of the 1940’s and the 1950’s, a number of outstanding productions were offered. The Moldian Music and Drama Theater presented A. N. Ostrovskii’s The Poor Bride (1946), N. F. Pogodin’s Kremlin Chimes (1947) and Man With a Gun (1953), Andrei Lupan’s Light (1949), and Gorky’s Enemies (1952), and the Russian Theater staged K. M. Simonov’s The Russian Question (1948) and Ostrovskii’s Talented People and Their Admirers (1950). Since the early 1950’s, Moldavian theaters have given much attention to plays by Moldavian playwrights, notably E. N. Bukov, L. Delianu, L. E. Kornianu, and R. M. Portnoi. They have also been turning to Moldavian classics. The Moldavian Music and Drama Theater has staged Synziana and Pepelia (1956) and Ovid (1958) by Aleksandri and The Mother-in-Law With Three Daughters-in-Law (1957), based on I. Kriange’s work. Kiritsa in Jassy by Aleksandri (1957) has been performed at the Bel’tsy Moldavian Theater, founded in 1957 and renamed the Aleksandri Bel’tsy Moldavian Theater in 1966. In 1960 the company of the Moldavian Music and Drama Theater took part in the Ten-Day Festival of Moldavian Art and Literature in Moscow.

By the 1960’s and early 1970’s, the Moldavian theater had matured, and a leading place in the repertoire was occupied by national plays, a number of which were being staged by other theaters in the Soviet Union. In staging the classics of world drama, Moldavian classics, and contemporary plays, Moldavian theaters are striving to express the individual traits and style of different kinds of works. The Moldavian Music and Drama Theater has produced The Wheel of Time by Anna Lupan (1961), King Lear by Shakespeare (1961), Casa mare (1962) and Birds of Our Youth (1973) by I. P. Drutse, Schweyk in World War II by B. Brecht (1962), Don’t Do Me Any Favors! by G. P. Malarchuk (1963), Masquerade by M. lu. Lermontov (1965), Eminesku by M. Shtefenesku (1966), The Fountain of Blanduzia by Aleksandri (1967), and The Inspector General by N. V. Gogol (1972). The Luchaferul Young People’s Theater, founded in 1960 in Kishinev, has staged Children and Apples by K. Kondri (1961), Twelfth Night by Shakespeare (1965), Intrigue and Love by F. Schiller (1965), Kiritsa in the Provinces by Aleksandri (1967), Under This Sky by A. A. Busuiok (1970), Land by I. I. Podolianu (1970), and Minodora by A. N. Strymbianu (1971). The Bel’tsy Moldavian Theater has performed Flight From Paradise by Malarchuk (1965) and Guilty Without Guilt (1967) by Ostrovskii. Works by playwrights of the fraternal republics of the Soviet Union, plays of other socialist countries, and progressive foreign plays are being staged with great success in Moldavian theaters.

In 1974, Moldavia had seven drama theaters, of which four were in Kishinev (including the Likurich Puppet Theater, founded in 1945), two in Bel’tsy, and one in Tiraspol’. The Moldavian Theatrical Society, founded in 1958, promotes artistic ties with theaters in the other republics of the Soviet Union. The G. Muzichesku Institute of Arts in Kishinev established an acting department in 1958 and a directing department in 1967. Important roles in the development of the Moldavian theater were played by the Odessa Theatrical School; the Leningrad Institute of Theater, Music, and Cinematography; the State Institute of Theatrical Arts; the B. V. Shchukin Theatrical School; and the Leningrad Choreographic School, all of which have trained theater groups for Moldavia. The stage directors V. K. Gerlaku, D. G. Lysenko, and D. T. Bondarenko have also made an important contribution. Outstanding actors and actresses of the Moldavian theater include People’s Artists of the USSR D. T. Darnienko, N. N. Masal’skaia, E. V. Ureke, and K. A. Shtirbul; People’s Artists of the Moldavian SSR M. M. Apostolov, P. N. Barakchi, V. N. Golovchenko, T. I. Gruzin, E. G. Kazimirova, K. T. Konstantinov, A. M. Platsynda, lu. A. Sokolov, and L. V. Shutova; and Honored Artists of the Moldavian SSR V. A. Rusu, K. G. Tyrtseu, and G. V. Khaso. Prominent directors include Honored Artists of the Moldavian SSR V. P. Kupcha and I. G. Shkuria, and the leading stage designers are Honored Artists of the Moldavian SSR B. E. Sokolov and A. E. Shubin.

REFERENCES

A. IA. SHNEER

The first film sequences shot in Moldavia by a director from the Kiev Film Studio were included in Documents of the Age (1927), a documentary film made in honor of the tenth anniversary of the October Revolution. Moldavian cinematography developed through close collaboration with filmmakers from the fraternal republics. In 1928 the Ukrainian newsreel Kinonedilia (Film Week) introduced subjects on Moldavia. The film On the Danube (1940) was based on material shot by cameramen from the Ukrainian and central newsreel studios. In 1944 the cameraman I. A. Griaznov shot the first parts of the newsreel Moldova Sovetike (Soviet Moldavia). A film studio for making newsreels and documentaries was founded in Kishinev in 1952. The studio produced a number of short films, including Kodry (1953) and Monuments to Military Glory (1955). In 1955 the studios of other republics created films about life in Moldavia, such as Liana (directed by B. V. Barnet) and Andriesh (directed by la. I. Bazelian and S. I. Paradzhanov); Moldavian cinematographers participated in the production of these films. In 1955 the first Moldavian feature film, Moldavian Refrains (directed by A. V. Zolotnitskii), was produced. The Kishinev Studio for Newsreels and Documentaries was reorganized as a studio for making feature films, newsreels, and documentaries and was renamed Moldova-Film.

The best Moldavian films are noted for their devotion to Communist goals and their interest in historical-revolutionary themes and contemporary problems. The motion picture The Last Month of Autumn (1965), directed by V. K. Derbenev, received the Grand Prix at the Seventh International Film Festival for Youth in Cannes in 1967. The film’s director and composer and the performer of the lead role were also awarded prizes and diplomas at the Festival of the Baltic Republics, the All-Union Festival, and at the Film Festival at Mar del Plata, Argentina.

Motion pictures dealing with historical-revolutionary and patriotic subjects include Marianna (1967), The Risk (1970), Red Snowstorm (1970), Red Little Sun (1972), Bridges (1973, directed by V. la. Paskaru), Sergei Lazo (1967, directed by A. V. Gordon), Lautary (1971, directed by E. V. Lotianu), Engraved in Memory (1972, directed by N. T. Gibu and M. M. Izrailev), The Last Haiduk (1972, directed by V. G. Gazhiu), and Dmitrii Kantemir (1973, directed by V. I. lovitse and V. A. Kalashnikov). An important film about contemporary life is Accused of Murder (1969), directed by B. I. Volchek. Among films dealing with people in modern Moldavia are Ten Winters for One Summer (1969, directed by Gazhiu), A Home for Serafim (1973, directed by la. Burgiu), Saved Reputation (1973, directed by V. I. Demin and D. I. Motornyi), and Native Home (1973, directed by Demin). An interesting portrait of a contemporary man, the first secretary of a party raion committee, was created by the actor B. Zaidenberg in the film Reserve Officer (1971, directed by Gibu and lu. A. Boretskii). Documentaries depicting Moldavia’s heroic past and contemporary life are made, and popular-science films are also released.

Film festivals in which all the Union republics participated were held in Moldavia in 1971–72. Also shown were films from Bulgaria, the Mongolian People’s Republic, the Korean Democratic People’s Republic, and other socialist countries. The International Film Festival of Agricultural Motion Pictures was held in 1972. The Moldavian Cinematographers’ Union was founded in 1962. As of Jan. 1, 1974, there were 1,834 motion-picture units in Moldavia.

REFERENCE

I. E. IORDANOV