A Contested Borderland: Competing Russian and Romanian Visions of Bessarabia in the Second: Competing Russian and Romanian Visions of Bessarabia in ... in Eastern Europe and Eurasia - CEU Press) - Hardcover

Cusco, Andrei

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 9633861594 ISBN 13: 9789633861592

Publisher: Central European University Press, 2017

Synopsis

Bessarabia―mostly occupied by modern-day republic of Moldova―was the only territory representing an object of rivalry and symbolic competition between the Russian Empire and a fully crystallized nation-state: the Kingdom of Romania. This book is an intellectual prehistory of the Bessarabian problem, focusing on the antagonism of the national and imperial visions of this contested periphery. Through a critical reassessment and revision of the traditional historical narratives, the study argues that Bessarabia was claimed not just by two opposing projects of ‘symbolic inclusion,’ but also by two alternative and theoretically antagonistic models of political legitimacy. By transcending the national lens of Bessarabian / Moldovan history and viewing it in the broader Eurasian comparative context, the book responds to the growing tendency in recent historiography to focus on the peripheries in order to better understand the functioning of national and imperial states in the modern era.

About this title

About the Author

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

Edition details

• Publisher: Central European University Press
• Publication date: 2017
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 9633861594
• ISBN 13: 9789633861592
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 348