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Artykuł ukazał się w: Spotkania polsko-mołdawskie. Księga poświęcona pamięci Profesora Janusza Solaka, red. M. Kosienkowski, Wydawnictwo Episteme, Lublin 2013, s. 303-328. ; The article describes new political developments in Transnistria, a quasi-state that has been outside of Moldovan control since 1992. Transnistria has gone through the process of gradual pluralisation over the last few years. This fact was fully manifested during the December 2011 presidential elections when due to several factors examined in this paper, Igor Smirnov – the Transnistrian, authoritarian and eternal leader – unexpectedly failed to be re-elected for his fifth term, and was replaced by Yevgeniy Shevchuk. The authors note that Transnistria's pluralisation positively affects the process of the Transnistrian conflict settlement. However, they have also come to the conclusion that prospects of further democratisation of the quasi-state are rather nebulous. ; Marcin Kosienkowski

For more than 30 years, Transnistria and Abkhazia separated from their parent states and proclaimed independence. Generations born and raised in unrecognized states have already entered an active age. In this regard, the question of how citizens of the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic and the Republic of Abkhazia understand independence, how important it is for them, how do they see the prospects of their states and what life strategies do they choose, becomes especially relevant. In the article, the authors compare the results of 13 focus groups conducted in Transnistria and Abkhazia in the fall of 2020 with the main socio-economic indicators of de facto states and their neighbors. This approach made it possible to connect the perception of the problems of everyday life with changes in the identity of citizens and the internal sovereignty of unrecognized states, to highlight the factors uniting and dividing various social groups, to assess their attitude to the current results and prospects of state building. The different composition of the groups made it possible to compare the opinions, firstly, of citizens who were socialized after the collapse of the Soviet Union and in Soviet times, secondly, different ethnic groups, men and women, and, thirdly, residents of different districts of de-facto states. It was revealed that the main economic indicators of Abkhazia and Transnistria lag behind the average values of neighboring countries. The lack of significant economic progress can potentially affect the loyalty of citizens to the political regime and negatively change the viability of the republics. In this context, signs of fatigue from the inconveniences of life in the unrecognized republic and low-income levels compared to neighboring countries and the mother state were revealed in the Abkhaz and Transnistrian societies.

The article examines the preconditions for the formation of the cultural policy of Transnistria, stipulated by the socio-cultural situation, socio-economic, demographic and ethnocultural characteristics of the region. The need to establish local priorities is substantiated due to the existing motley composition of the multinational population of Transnistria, which was formed as a result of the assimilation and consolidation of various ethnic groups living in the multicultural republic. The instruments of cultural policy used in Transnistria, formed under the conditions of political unrecognition and economic instability of the country, are considered in a historical context, taking into account financial, legislative, administrative, structural and human resources.The study showed that the institution of presidency has the greatest influence on the cultural policy of Transnistria, which largely determines the state of the infrastructure and the development vector of the cultural space of the region as a whole.The study results in recommendations to introduce such regulators of influence on the cultural space of the region, which will correlate the issues of the influence of sociocultural factors on socio-economic development, by combining the value of traditional cultures with modernization, cultural diversity with ethnocultural identity, taking into account the peculiarity of the mentality of ethnocultural groups of multiethnic Transnistria. ; В статье рассматриваются предпосылки формирования культурной политики Приднестровья, обусловленные социально-культурной ситуацией, социально-экономическими, демографическими и этнокультурными характеристиками региона. Обосновывается необходимость установления локальных приоритетов, обусловленных сложившимся пестрым составом многонационального населения Приднестровья, который образовался в результате процессов ассимиляции и консолидации различных этносов, проживающих в поликультурной республике. Инструменты культурной политики, применяемые в Приднестровье, формируемые в условиях политической непризнанности и экономической нестабильности страны, рассматриваются в историческом контексте с учетом финансовых, законодательных, административных, структурных и кадровых ресурсов.Исследование показало, что наибольшее влияние на культурную политику Приднестровья оказывает институт президентства, который и определяет в значительной степени состояние инфраструктуры и вектор развития культурного пространства региона в целом.Итогом исследования являются рекомендации по внедрению таких регуляторов влияния на культурное пространство региона, которые будут соотносить вопросы влияния социокультурных факторов на социально-экономическое развитие путем сочетания ценности традиционных культур с модернизацией, культурного многообразия с этнокультурной идентичностью, с учетом своеобразия менталитета этнокультурных групп полиэтничного Приднестровья.

With the early "flush of victory" against USSR, and the (under)cover provided by Hitler's "war of annihilation" in the East, Ion Antonescu and his regime turned ethnic cleansing into a top priority policy. Mesmerized by the promise of a Jew free Romania, with other ethnic and religious minorities targeted as well, the government easily accepted mass killing, ghettoization, and brutal deportations as means to achieve envisioned ultra-nationalistic ends. However, with late 1942 and the "pallor of defeat", at a time the Nazi continent wide Holocaust was in full swing, Bucharest decided to reject the International Final Solution proposed by Berlin. Plans to deport the Romanian Jews to Poland were unexpectedly abandoned, and further evacuations to Transnistria halted. The shift came too late, at a time the evil was already done, and Romania stood on the verge of genocide. Transnistria was by now an infamous "kingdom of death". Bullets, famine, hard labor and diseases were effective means in the Romanian process of destruction of the Jews, a process that did not included gas vans and chambers, but in which not one community east of the river Prut was spared. Acting as liaison to the Nazi perpetrators the Romanian ones moved hastily from savage massacres to more bureaucratic ways of killings. The cruelty is striking, and the process is no less structured in its brutality when compared to the Nazi one in the occupied Soviet territories. The importance of Transnistria stays with the staggering number of victims, the expediency of killing operations in the vicinity of villages and towns, very personal, a human butchery that resembles in its mixture of police, military, and bureaucratic violence, efficient and organized, many other killing fields and cases of ethnic cleansing and genocide, and the proximity of the Holocaust in Ukraine, different from the classic Shoah only in terms of framework and method. Moving from here and aiming for clarity, I will try to understand the policy that made Transnistria possible, a development that is not incidental and accidental. Attention is given not only to the Romanian government, institutions and agencies but also to the Nazi perspective on Eastern territories, the empire-building policy in the Ukraine, and the dynamic of the Nazi solution to the Jewish Question. When analyzing the actions and attitudes of the above-mentioned actors in a wider context, my intention is simply to shed some light on the inception and role of Transnistria during the Holocaust.