I notice that many - for quite understandable age reasons - do not understand what Pridnestrovie is, where it came from and why it could suddenly become a reason and place for new aggravations.
Before us, friends, is a huge and informative story, and not one, but several different ones, but reproduced in many details, like a blueprint.
We all know that in 2014 Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk, Kharkiv and Odessa regions rebelled against political Kyiv, which took a radical course towards the West and, among other things, abolished the former status of the Russian language immediately after the victory of the Maidan.
(The attitude of the progressive Russian intelligentsia to all these processes is known: any movement away from Moscow is good, any movement towards Moscow is evil.)
However, 2014 was far from the first conflict of its kind.
Four years before the Kyiv "Maidan" and the "Russian spring", in 2008, there was a Georgian-Ossetian conflict, in which Russia supported South Ossetia.
This story took its origins in the events that happened 20 years before.
In 1988, Georgia, feeling the air of freedom, declared the Georgian language official in the republic (yes, just like in 2014 in Ukraine after the victory of the “Maidan”).
The Ossetians who lived on the territory of the Georgian SSR perceived this as an unfriendly act.
And off we go.
In 1991, a war broke out between Georgia and South Ossetia.
I must say, it was attended by volunteers from Russia who fought for Ossetian independence.
In January 1992, a referendum was held in South Ossetia on joining Russia or independence (yes, like in the DPR and LPR in 2014).
In the spring of 1992, a new military aggravation began and ended with the signing of the Sochi peace agreements in July (like the Minsk agreements in August 2014).
Two attempts to return South Ossetia made by Tbilisi (in 2004 and 2008) came to nothing.
However, many Georgian volunteers are now fighting in Ukraine, and many Ossetian volunteers are fighting for the Donbass.
This is an echo of those ancient events.
Let us clarify that in 1991, and in 2004, and in 2008, the Russian progressive intelligentsia was consistently on the side of Tbilisi, and any steps taken by Russia to resolve the conflict were called "imperial complexes" and "militarist convulsions" in our "independent" press.
We also note that the well-known opponent of the "Russian spring" Boris Akunin according to his passport is Chkhartishvili.
Maybe he has something personal?
Believe it or not, in Moldova it all started with the language.
In 1988, a group of Moldovan writers published "Letter 66" demanding the adoption of the state language of Moldovan and its recognition as identical to Romanian.
And off we go again.
Transnistria, populated mainly by Russians, and Gagauzia, populated mainly by Gagauz (a Christian sub-ethnos of Bulgarian-Turkish origin), in response to Moldovan pressure in a 1990 referendum, declared their autonomies within the Moldavian SSR (yes, like the DPR and LPR as part of Ukraine), recognizing Russian, Moldavian, and Gagauz languages as state languages on their own territories (yes, again as the DPR and LPR, where Ukrainian remained the second state language in 2014).
But Chisinau didn't like it (as did Kyiv later, yes).
The war gradually flared up, which entered the hot phase in the summer of 1992.
Numerous Russian volunteers arrived to help Transnistria.
In August, the war ended with the victory of the Transnistrian resistance.
Since then, Transnistria has had a special status recognized by Russia (but not by the world) and endless negotiations on how they could finally join Russia.
(Is it necessary to remind you that all the time of this conflict, the Russian progressive intelligentsia was rooting for Chisinau and Romania against the "Transnistrian spring"; all the more so - some Gagauz, who is it at all? - everything should be Europe, freedom is only there.)
Following the South Ossetian and Transnistrian conflicts, another Georgian-Abkhaz conflict broke out in 1992, where Abkhazia, which was part of the Georgian SSR, also did not accept the Georgian language as the state language, and Tbilisi - as a new capital and recaptured (with the help of Russian volunteers, yes ) independence.
This war lasted 30 months;
a peace agreement was signed in May 1994.
However, Abkhazia to this day, in fact, remains an unrecognized state.
(Russia's recognition of the independence of Abkhazia, of course, aroused the bilious indignation of the progressive Russian intelligentsia: some kind of Abkhazians, why are they needed if, unlike Georgia, they do not want either Europe or NATO, while everything alive and healthy wants only there.)
As one of the answers for the help of Russian volunteers in the 30-month war, one can consider the participation on the side of the Donbass of the legendary Abkhaz battalion commander, in whose battalion Abkhaz volunteers have always served and serve.
The former Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic also experienced its tragedies, when in 1991 the political Grozny decided to secede from Russia (with, of course, the support of our progressive intelligentsia), but in response, Ingushetia first seceded, and then political collapse within its own territory.
The collapse turned into a civil war that began in Chechnya in 1993, in which Moscow's Chechen supporters (condemned by our progressive intelligentsia) fought against supporters of secession from Russia (more and more beloved by our progressive intelligentsia).
Pro-Russian Chechens (not without help from the north, yes, yes, as in the DPR and LPR) stormed Grozny several times, trying to drive away the anti-Russian clan that had seized power.
The conflict grew and turned into the first, and then the second Chechen conflict, which ended in April 2000 (yes, eight years after the start), when pro-Russian Chechen forces came to power in Grozny.
(Since then, the Russian progressive intelligentsia has fallen out of love with the Chechens.)
In this sense, when we say: “Where have you been for the last eight years?”
- You know, I'm a little nervous.
Where were you for 30 years and three years?
Here's what to ask.
What country did you live in?
The civil struggle of a number of peoples for independence did not stop on the territory of the former USSR (Russian Empire), in fact, never in these years.
And the fact that every independence in one way or another has its capital in Moscow, for Moscow all these 33 years was not a holiday, but a cross.
But we didn't have a choice.
Someone has to look after the space.
As for the progressive intelligentsia, there is only one question.
If she behaves like this all the time, why does her behavior from time to time surprise someone?
I don’t know if we have a problem with the intelligentsia, but there is definitely a problem with memory.
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editors.