The problem of the protest movement development in the Pridnestrovian Region of the Moldavian SSR (late 1980s)

The subject of the study is an analysis of the causes for the protest movement development in the Pridnestrovian Region of the Moldavian SSR in 1988-1989. Particular attention is paid to the «language issue», which became the main reason for the creation of the Pridnestrovian protest movement. The paper describes the socio-political situation in the Moldavian SSR in the late 1980s, which contributed to the creation of the main acting forces of civil conflict in the republic, namely, nationalist organizations and the internationalist protest movement. The novelty of the study is the analysis of the process of creating a protest movement in the Pridnestrovian Region of Moldova. This problem has not been studied in the historiography of Pridnestrovie and the Republic of Moldova yet. The author comes to the conclusion that the nationalist-minded part of the republican leadership, with the direct support of the Popular Front and the inaction of the Central Committee of the CPM, contributed to the politicization of the «language issue», while taking the course toward secession from the USSR and the subsequent entry into the state of Romania. In this historical situation, the Russian-speaking multinational population, together with the Moldovan population of the Pridnestrovian Region, was forced to create a protest movement in order to protect its civil and constitutional rights, as well as preserve the territory of its region within the Soviet state.