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Soviet Policy in the Annexed East European Borderlands: Language, Politics and Ethnicity in Moldova

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The Soviet Union in Eastern Europe, 1945–89

Abstract

The Soviet annexation of the Baltic republics and portions of Poland, Finland and Romania in 1940 helped place the USSR — quite literally — in Eastern Europe. The two great symbols of the Soviet Union’s westward expansion towards the European heartland were recounted in August 1940 by the Soviet Foreign Minister, Viacheslav Molotov. First, Molotov noted that the westward shift of the Soviet borders to the Baltic was ‘of first-rate importance for our country’, ensuring Soviet access to ice-free ports on the Baltic. Second, regarding the former Romanian territory of Bessarabia, Molotov observed that: ‘the frontiers of the Soviet Union have shifted west and now reach the Danube which, next to the Volga, is the biggest river in Europe and one of the most important commercial routes for a number of European countries’.1

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Notes

  1. Quoted in Bohdan Nahaylo and Victor Swoboda, Soviet Disunion: A History of the Nationalities Problem in the USSR (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1990) p. 86.

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Authors
  1. Charles E. King
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Nobel Institute, Oslo, Norway

    Odd Arne Westad (Director of Research) (Director of Research)

  2. Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies, Oslo, Norway

    Sven Holtsmark (Senior Research Associate) & Iver B. Neumann (Research Fellow) (Senior Research Associate) &  (Research Fellow)

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© 1994 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited

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King, C.E. (1994). Soviet Policy in the Annexed East European Borderlands: Language, Politics and Ethnicity in Moldova. In: Westad, O.A., Holtsmark, S., Neumann, I.B. (eds) The Soviet Union in Eastern Europe, 1945–89. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-23234-5_5

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