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Occasional Paper #290Whose House isMoldova?Hospitality as a Model forEthnic Relations

Jennifer R. Cash

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Occasional Paper #290Whose House isMoldova?Hospitality as a Model forEthnic Relations

Jennifer R. Cash

For more than a decade, the Republic ofMoldova has struggled with the challenges ofstate building. In addition to the formidabletasks of creating democratic institutions andbuilding a market economy, Moldova is facedwith the need to define its national identity.The country’s population is ethnically andregionally diverse, increasing the complexityof accomplishing such fundamental tasks asselecting state and official languages, craftingcitizenship laws, and devolving politicalauthority to local districts. Moreover,Moldova’s citizenry and politicians currentlyrespond to national questions as if politicsand policy formulation are a “zero-sum”game.1 Representatives of both the majorityand minorities perceive any gain by others asa loss of power or rights for themselves.Perceiving ethnic rights as a zero-sum gameis a legacy of Soviet nationality policies thatpitted ethnic groups against each other in acompetition for limited power andresources,2 but liberal political theories havealso failed to yield satisfactory solutions forguaranteeing ethnocultural rights.3 If a newmodel for ethnic politics is not developed inMoldova, the consequences will be severe,including the prolonging and possible wors-ening of two ethnoregional conflicts.

To achieve stability and prosper as ademocratic state, Moldova requires a new

model of the state and its relations with eth-nic groups. Moldova especially requires apolitical model that specifies the responsibili-ties, as well as rights, that citizens have towardand in the state.As a socialist state, the SovietUnion relied on a political model in whichcitizens exchanged loyalty to the state for thesatisfaction of their basic needs and wants.Ademocratic state, however, requires citizens toactively run the state, meeting their ownneeds and interests through collective action.

There are many models for organiz-ing democracies, some of which encouragemore conflict between interest groups thanothers. Because ethnic conflict is already oneof the most visible and volatile political lega-cies in post-Soviet Moldova, I argue that thenew country requires political models ofdemocracy that deemphasize conflict, or atthe very least, redefine political relationsbetween ethnic groups in ways that deem-phasize conflict.4 This paper offers a prelimi-nary discussion of one model—the state as ahouse—that might be useful in reformulatingidentity politics into a “win–win” endeavor.In this model, which draws on local concep-tions of hospitality, individual citizens andethnic groups are more than the “owners” oftheir political “house.”Whether the house isdefined as a region or as the whole state, itsowners are also “hosts” who take pride in

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Whose House is Moldova?Hospitality as a Model for Ethnic Relations

by Jennifer R. Cash

The author was a visiting lecturer at the Russian and East European Institute, Indiana University, whilepreparing this paper in the fall of 2003. Drafts of this paper were presented twice at sessions of a KennanInstitute workshop titled “Contemporary and Historical Perspectives on Conflict in the Former Soviet Union”and benefited greatly from comments offered by Margarita Balmaceda, Michele Commercio, Jennifer Giglio,Ambassador William Hill, Debra Javeline, Mark Katz, Mary Matthews, Julianne Paunescu, Margaret Paxson,Michael Reynolds, Blair Ruble, Erin Trouth, and Erika Weinthal. Funding for the original research came fromthe International Research and Exchanges Board in the form of an Independent Advanced ResearchOpportunity grant in 2001, and predissertation travel grants from three sources at Indiana University,Bloomington—the Russian and East European Institute, Department of Anthropology, and Office ofInternational Programs. None of these individuals or organizations is responsible for the final formulation ofinformation and ideas as they appear here.

offering hospitality to others.In the ordinary routines of daily life,

Moldova’s citizens deeply value hospitalityand take pride in being “good hosts.”Ashosts in their own homes, adults generouslyoffer food and drink to guests, even whenthey arrive uninvited or unknown. Hosts alsostrive to speak their guests’ language. In otherwords, Moldova’s citizens ordinarily strive toanticipate and meet the material and socialneeds of others. Offering hospitality, evenacross ethnic lines, ordinarily arouses pleasureand pride.When dealing with individual“guests,” Moldova’s citizens do not experi-ence using a language other than their ownas an imposition. Instead, they are generallywilling to learn and use other languages, andeven cultural habits, to provide hospitality,enable communication, and forge mutuallybeneficial and enjoyable social relationships.By defining citizens as hosts, a new model ofpolitical culture based on the ideals of hospi-tality could generate political institutions,procedures, and behaviors that respect, recog-nize, and promote both unity and diversity inMoldova.

After giving an overview ofMoldova’s political situation and recent con-flicts, this paper uses several ethnographicencounters to discuss how hospitality cur-rently intersects with Moldova’s political cul-ture of ethnic competition.The conclusionoutlines tentative guidelines for fostering apolitical culture based on the ideals of hospi-tality. Most important, I caution against rely-ing on government initiated policies, laws,projects, imagery, or rhetoric to institutional-ize hospitality and multiethnicity as centralpillars of Moldova’s national identity. Likeother post-Soviet and postsocialist states,Moldova requires creative political solutionsthat do not closely resemble previous state-and nation-building initiatives. It is for thisreason that hospitality, whether better takenas an existing model or as a guiding

metaphor in creating new models, has somuch potential. I urge policymakers to con-sider infusing all projects related to Moldova’sdevelopment and transition with the ideals ofhospitality already shared by the country’sdiverse inhabitants.

OVERVIEW OF MOLDOVA’SPOLITICAL SITUATION

In 1991, the Republic of Moldova becamean independent state for the first time.Thecountry is formally organized as a “nation-state,” but the centrality of identity questionsin domestic and international politics sug-gests that Moldova might be better describedas a “nationalizing” state (Brubaker 1996).5

The population is ethnically diverse in thefollowing proportions: 64.5 percentRomanian-speaking,6 13.8 percentUkrainian, 13 percent Russian, 3.5 percentGagauz, 2.0 percent Jewish, 1.5 percentBulgarian, and others (EncyclopediaBritannica 1997, 670).7 The first issue facingthe new state is thus whether to define itselfas a “territorial” or “civic” nation.

The primary difference between ter-ritorial and civic nations rests on how citi-zenship, or state ownership, is allocated.As aterritorial nation, Moldova would belongequally to all its ethnic groups. But as an eth-nic nation, Moldova would only belong toone or a few ethnic groups with special pro-visions made for minorities.This basic choicebetween a “civic” or “ethnic” form of state iscomplicated by a second (and older) debateregarding the identity of the majority.Romanian-speakers in Moldova have longbeen referred to as “Moldovans,” meaningthat any discussion of a “Moldovan” nationor state tends to suggest that the state isalready “ethnic” in form, and already belongs(or should belong) solely to the Romanian-speakers. During the past decade or more, the

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dominant model for Moldova’s nationalidentity has shifted several times.

Beginning in the late 1980s, questionsof national identity dominated Moldova’spolitical scene throughout the 1990s. Beforeand just after independence, public debatefocused on defining the identity of the eth-nic majority, and it emphasized theMoldovan-Romanian question:Was there aseparate “Moldovan” language and nation, ordid the “Moldovans” in the Soviet Unionspeak the same language, and share the sameculture and history with the “Romanians” inneighboring Romania? During the late1980s, the Pan-Romanian movement gainedparticular political strength and public pres-ence, asserting that the Moldovans andRomanians constituted a single nation andshould be united in a single state. Much tothe surprise of international observers, thepan-Romanian movement quickly lost itsprominence after Moldova gained independ-ence. Moldova did not unite with Romaniaafter gaining independence in 1991. Instead,power struggles between two regional cen-ters and the central government in Chisinaudeveloped into violent “ethnic” conflictswhen political leaders played on minorityfears related to the potential “Romanianiza-tion” of the country.

POST-SOVIET CONFLICTS

In the early 1990s, Moldova’s dominantapproach to “ethnic” politics resulted in twoviolent conflicts.The primary politicaldemands openly voiced during perestroika inMoldova, as in other former Soviet republics,equated democratization with de-Russification. Participants in numerous pub-lic meetings and rallies in 1988–89, usuallyled by the emerging Popular Front party,demanded that Russian be eliminated as thestate language, and that the “Moldovan” lan-guage be recognized as “Romanian,” written

in the Latin alphabet (instead of Cyrillic), andinstated as the republic’s official language.During 1989 and 1990,Transnistria (theregion on the east bank of the DneisterRiver) and the Gagauz (a Turkic-speakingethnic group concentrated in southernMoldova) also declared autonomousrepublics.

Initially, the Transnistrian and Gagauzdemands for increased political recognitiondid not visibly conflict with the demandsadvanced by the Popular Front. For example,the Gagauz Halki sent representatives to thefounding meeting of the Popular Front in1989 (King 2000, 215).The Gagauz alsooriginally envisioned increased autonomywithin Moldova (Chinn and Roper 1998,94), but by 1991, called for an autonomousrepublic within Russia.Transnistrian officialsalso originally voted for an autonomousregion within Moldova (Hamm 1998, 170).But, the Front’s increasing rhetorical empha-sis on Moldova’s Romanian identity, and itssuccess in institutionalizing Moldovan as theofficial language in September 1989, intensi-fied the fear and uncertainty felt by ethnicminorities concerning their place and rightsin a future Romanian-dominated state.8

In a development that Kaufman(1996) refers to as “spiraling,” fearful massesbegan to support a few political elites whowere primarily concerned with “outbidding”each other for power.To leverage an advan-tage over their opponents, these elites playedon ethnically localized fears of languageextinction, political domination, and—espe-cially—job prospects for individuals who didnot speak the official language. In 1990, thecentral government in Chisinau, dominatedby members of the Popular Front, sent armedvolunteers into Transnistria and among theGagauz to quell separatist activity, resulting inviolent conflicts in the two regions between1990 and 1992.

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Political solutions to Moldova’s two“ethnic” conflicts have not yet been fullyachieved.A political solution with theGagauz was reached only in 1994 with theconstitutional establishment of Gagauz Yeri asa semiautonomous region. Meanwhile,Transnistria declared itself a sovereign andindependent republic in 1996. No other stateor international organization recognizes theDneister Moldovan Republic, but repeatedattempts to reintegrate Transnistria within theRepublic of Moldova, including through thecountry’s federalization, have failed.The mostrecent federalization proposal, drafted byRussia’s representatives in the negotiatingprocess, was very nearly signed by Moldova’spresident in late November 2003, but it metwith mass protests in Chisinau, and criticismfrom the Organization for Security andCooperation in Europe, the United States,and the European Union.9 The internationalcommunity remains optimistic about federal-ization in principle, but a realistic plan thatsatisfies all interested parties will take consid-erable time and skillful negotiation. Everynew proposal regarding Transnistria’s statusalso brings Gagauz representatives to recon-sider their own status within Moldova.Thuseach conflict requires the settlement of theother to be fully resolved.

THE ETHNICIZATION OFCONFLICT AND POLITICS

The emergence of violent conflict inMoldova during the early post-Soviet period,whether best described as “ethnic” or“regional,”“mass” or “elite,” is especially trag-ic because it seems to have been avoidable.Kaufman (1996) argues that Moldova’s con-flicts only occurred because of a convergenceof three factors in the chaos of the late-Soviet period: hostile masses, belligerent lead-ers, and interethnic security dilemmas.

Indeed, Crowther (1998) demonstrates thatthe general population’s relatively low levelsof ethnic antagonism, coupled with theirgreater interest in economic reform, helpedbreak the spiral of conflict as citizens with-drew their support from the Popular Front infavor of more ethnically moderate parties.King’s (2000) analysis of political develop-ments in the middle and late 1990s furtherdemonstrates that political success inMoldova does not require, and perhapsnecessitates against, a strong stance on nation-al identity or ethnic relations. Successive gov-ernments have continually deemphasizedpan-Romanian rhetoric and increasinglyemphasized Moldova’s multiethnic charactersince 1994.Yet periodic public strikes overproposed laws related to language, education,history texts, minority rights, or federaliza-tion plans testify to the population’s deepmistrust that the state represents “their” inter-ests.

In fact, Moldova’s current politicalsystem effectively discourages the formationor recognition of distinct constituencies(King 2000, 160).The whole country consti-tutes a single electoral district; voters selectparties, not individuals; and parliamentaryseats are distributed to parties in proportionto the total share of votes received. Politicalstructure, procedures, and rhetoric workagainst discovering issues and interests that donot correlate with ethnic identity.

In many cases,“ethnic” interestsmight be better glossed in terms ofrural/urban or regional differences.That is,Moldova’s ethnic groups are distributedunevenly throughout the country, and theycorrespond to regional as well as rural/urbandivides.10 Transnistria has a high percentageof Slavic speakers (48 percent combinedUkrainian and Russian, compared with 26.8percent in the country as a whole), andGagauz are concentrated in the south.The

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coincidence of uneven ethnic distributionswith distinct regional identities has led someanalysts (e.g., Kolsto and Malgin 1998) toconclude that the conflicts of the early 1990sare examples of “ethnicized” regionalism.From this perspective, conflicts with the cen-tral government have deeper support amongthe population because of a sense of regionaldifference.

The case for Transnistria’s regionalismis especially pronounced because its historyand political experience diverges sharplyfrom that of Bessarabia.11 For example,Bessarabia was part of the medieval principal-ity of Moldova, was later governed as aguberniia within imperial Russia, and was alsounited with the Kingdom of Romaniabetween World Wars I and II.Transnistria,however, had no political identity until theearly 1920s, when the Soviet Union createdthe Moldavian Autonomous Soviet SocialistRepublic (MASSR) within Soviet Ukraine.As part of the MASSR,Transnistria wasindustrialized and Sovietized more thorough-ly than Bessarabia, to which it was joined in1940.

Although the conflict with theGagauz emerged more clearly from ethnicallyspecific demands, we should also not over-look the potential existence and importanceof regional identity in the south. Historically,the Russian empire opened southernBessarabia to colonization by Gagauz,Bulgarians, Germans, and others during the1800s, whereas Romanian-speakers dominatethe relatively older settlements in centralBessarabia.Today, the Gagauz share manyaspects of a common culture with theseother neighboring ethnic groups (personalinterviews with Hülya Demirdirek in 1995,cited by Chinn and Roper 1998, 90).12 Dueto its drier climate and relative neglect bysuccessive governments, the south has alsobeen historically poorer than the rest

Moldova. Other ethnic groups in the southshare such “Gagauz” grievances as environ-mentally related health epidemics and poor-quality education, roads, water quality, andmedical facilities (see King 2000, 212).Considering the evidence of regional andrural/urban diversity, political analysts woulddo well to ask why ethnic questions retainsuch prominence in the politics of post-Soviet Moldova.

Although conflicts in Transnistria andGagauz Yeri may have been avoidable, theyhave reinforced a model of zero-sum politicsbetween the ethnic majority and minorities.Today, power in Moldova’s eastern andsouthern regions is held by minority groupswho resist policies that they perceive asattempts to “Romanianize” Moldova.Romanian-speakers in turn resist policiesperceived as attempts to “Russify” Moldova,even when these policies intend to promotethe rights of all minority groups.The settle-ment of both conflicts requires that the statecreate a political structure that satisfies thecombination of language rights, regionalautonomy, and national representationdemanded by these two regions and possiblyother minorities, while meeting theRomanian-speaking majority’s own demandsfor cultural and political self-determination.To break the cycle of reactive conflict, andforestall the development of future “spiral-ing” into violence, Moldova also needs apolitical model that recognizes ethnic identi-ty as a central feature of social and politicallife and that emphasizes cooperation ratherthan conflict.

CREATING A MULTIETHNIC STATE

Since 1994, Moldova’s leadership has pro-gressively abandoned pro-Romanian politicalrhetoric. Instead, the new state appears to bedefining itself as a territorially based civicnation with a multiethnic or supraethnic

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political culture.13 The language of the 1994Constitution suggests a “multiethnicMoldovan Staatsvolk,” and even as early as1991, Moldova extended citizenship toeveryone born on the territory, or resident in1990 (Neukirch 1999, 52–53).The country’slanguage laws are similarly liberal: Moldovanis the state language, but laws and officialdocuments must be published in Russian,and the right to address public institutionsand receive answers in Russian is guaranteed.Furthermore, minority students have theright to be educated in their own language,but most actually receive most instruction inRussian or Moldovan. In 1995, Moldovaoutlined a “foreign policy concept” that fur-ther established the country’s official com-mitment to multiethnicity (King 2000, 170).

In practice, Moldova is less multieth-nic than official statements advertise. On thebasis of a thorough review of the 1994Constitution’s content, ordinary legislation,and real politics, for example, Neukirch con-cludes that Moldova is still a “national statewith a titular nation and different nationalminorities” (1999, 53). Indeed, the possibilityof giving Russian an official status repeatedlysurfaces in political debate, generating publicdiscord among Romanian-speakers. Becausethe state has not yet succeeded in achieving“symmetric bilingualism,” or an even greaterdegree of multilingualism, language andidentity remain highly symbolic and emo-tional issues that political figures manipulateto gain popular support. Unfortunately, poli-tics as usual still tends to polarize the elec-torate over ethnic issues.

A NEW MODEL?

To resolve persistent identity issues, Moldovamay need a new model of the state and itsrelations with ethnic groups. During ethno-graphic fieldwork in 2001, I encountered

several discussions in which local citizensequated Moldova with a house by describingethnic relations in terms of hospitality. Moreoften than not, these discussions focused onbreaches of etiquette in a host–guest relation,metaphorically describing social and politicalrelations between ethnic groups in terms of“hosts” whose generosity had been abusedand unappreciated, and “guests” who hadmade themselves too much “at home.”As Ishow below, however, local conceptions ofhospitality also provide guidelines that indi-viduals use in their daily lives to facilitatepeaceable relations across ethnic and linguis-tic lines. I urge policymakers to consider howexisting values of hospitality, and especiallythe basic identity of being “hosts” shared byadults of all ethnic groups in Moldova, canbe translated into political behaviors that willenable the ongoing negotiation of ethnicrelations in this country to be undertaken asa collaborative and tolerant enterprise.

This paper presents ethnographic dataon hospitality in Moldova, and it investigatesthe rights, duties, and obligations that arenormally associated with being a “host” or a“guest.” Moldova’s citizens deeply value hos-pitality.The “host” (or “hostess”) is one ofthe social roles performed most frequently byadults in Moldova, and is one of the mostsalient personal identities for individual menand women.14 Although the rules of hospi-tality ordinarily apply only to the relationshipbetween hosts and the guests they invite intotheir homes, many individuals also strive todemonstrate that they are “good” hosts inpublic interactions with strangers.Thisaccounts for the “quite pragmatic and liberalmanner” that people have of using multiplelanguages in markets and other public set-tings, as described by Neukirch (1999, 54). Inthese public encounters,“hosts” expect thosethey define as “guests” to exhibit certainbehaviors—especially in language use—in

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return for their demonstrations of generosity.By understanding the rights, obligations, andresponsibilities associated with the moreordinary forms of hospitality in Moldova,especially where they involve questions ofownership, generosity, and language, we maybe able to better understand how individualsare willing to behave toward each other ascitizens in a common state, as well as howthey expect to be treated in return.

The particularities of hospitality indi-cate that it is possible to build a civic andethnically tolerant national identity inMoldova. First, hospitality is part of a com-mon culture that is shared by the country’sseveral ethnic groups. Second, the valueplaced on hospitality reveals the population’sgeneral openness to people who speak differ-ent languages, and a generally positive evalua-tion of cultural diversity. Recent politicalexperience, along with assumptions aboutethnic difference, have conditionedMoldova’s citizens to expect political compe-tition between ethnic groups for state power.Hospitality, however, provides a model inwhich, if state power is adequately devolved,individual citizens can conceptualize them-selves as belonging to a political communityof “hosts.” In such a community, attention isfocused on how well hosts perform theirsocial responsibilities, rather than on howwell guests acknowledge their host’s generos-ity. Such a community assumes and promotesequality over the long term, and it seeks tominimize institutionalized inequalities.As amodel for political relations, hospitality alsooffers a model for overcoming society’s eth-nic and linguistic divides in the immediatepresent and longer future.

HOSPITALITY AND POLITICALCULTURE

Experience reveals that civic nations aremore stable in the long term because they

grant equal “ownership” of the state to allindividual citizens, regardless of their ethnicbackground, or membership in other socialgroups (Smith 1991).Yet stability and legiti-macy require more than a legal structurestipulating the civic nation-state’s existence.Stability and legitimacy also require the exis-tence or establishment of a common politicalculture, which includes “public or politicalvalues, ideals, practices, institutions, mode ofpolitical discourse, and self-understanding”(Parekh 2000, 200).

In a multiethnic state, this commonculture too often reflects only the culture ofthe politically dominant ethnic group, result-ing in a dialectical relationship between thestate’s attempts to create a civic identity, andthe population’s tendencies toward ethnicconflict and separatism (Smith 1991,133–34). Newly independent states, includingMoldova, are especially susceptible to thisdynamic.Although a common political cul-ture cannot be “officially engineered,” poli-cies can be crafted that highlight existingcultural commonalities and emphasize theirrelevance in public and political spheres(Parekh 2000, 222).

There is substantial evidence of com-monalities between Moldova’s ethnic groups.Moldova’s citizens are quick to tell Westernresearchers that there are no “ethnic prob-lems” in their country, and opinion surveysdo bear out a lower degree of ethnic chau-vinism than in neighboring Romania, forexample (Crowther 1997, 1998). Ethnicintermarriage is also common,15 meaningthat many individuals actually have close per-sonal relationships that cross ethnic bound-aries. Local ethnographers also report fewmajor cultural differences between ethnicgroups, citing the shared Orthodox religionalong with long-term cohabitation and cul-tural borrowing as the major sources ofcross-ethnic commonality. It is not clear,

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however, how any of these commonalitiesmight translate into a common political cul-ture.

During nearly a year of ethnographicfieldwork conducted in 2001, I found thatlocal discussions of hosts and hospitality pro-vide a potential model of political ownership.Therefore, I offer an ethnographic account ofhospitality in the hopes that it will revealsome key values that Moldova’s ethnic groupsalready share that could be incorporated andelaborated into a common political culture.

HOSPITALITY IN MOLDOVA

Adults in Moldova generally enjoy invitingfriends, family, and even strangers into theirhouses where they treat them to food, drink,and a convivial atmosphere.These mutuallypleasurable episodes of hospitality alsoaccomplish a great deal of “work” by estab-lishing and strengthening critical social rela-tionships. Hospitality usually mediates rela-tions that directly affect the welfare of adomestic household, and “guests” are drawnfrom the ranks of a family’s friends, relatives,neighbors, and colleagues. Because peoplefrequently try to reconfigure national politicsinto the idiom of home and family, however,hospitality also symbolically mediates rela-tions between social groups. In Moldova,hospitality especially comments on ideal andnormative relations between ethnic groups.The following investigation of the rulesobserved by good hosts and guests thereforeoffers an opportunity to discuss howMoldova’s citizens think the country’s ethnicgroups should ideally relate to each other inthe political and social frameworks of a com-mon state.

The Importance of Being Hospitable

In May 2001, I attended the going-awayparty of a fellow American graduate student

who had spent the academic year of 2000–1studying Romanian and Russian while livingwith a host family.As host of her own going-away party, my colleague would have to givethe first toast. In the days before her party,my friend drafted and practiced her littlespeech, but she was still extremely nervouswhen she stood to speak.As soon as shethanked the administrator from the AmericanCouncil for Collaboration in Education andLanguage Study, her host family, and herteachers and their extended families forbeing “atît de primitori,”16 she needed to sayno more. Her guests were nodding and smil-ing. She had just thanked them for beinghospitable.

It was the reaction to this speech thatmade me attentive to the number of timesthe quality of being hospitable, of being prim-itor, came up in discussions about individuals,families, and even other countries and peo-ples. In the nearly six months I had previous-ly spent in Moldova, I had noticed, of course,that people were hospitable. I had alwaysbeen offered food, for example, when enter-ing someone’s house. I was rarely asked to dochores, and in fact, the possibility of doingthem often seemed hidden from me. I wasusually sent out of the house during themorning “to study,” and I returned later tofind that my elderly landlady and her sisterhad traveled across the city on buses to thecentral market to bring back heavy loads ofpotatoes, a whole lamb, or other large quan-tities of produce. I watched them struggle toconvince the nineteen-year-old grandson ofthe family to help beat rugs outside, and turndown my offers to help, only to reluctantlyaccept them after a week had gone by with-out being able to get the grandson’s help.Even then, my landlady insisted that weshould beat the rugs when I “wasn’t busy.”

In general, my efforts to join house-hold activities were subtly undermined, even

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when I expressed great interest in learninghow something was being done—cooking,canning, or harvesting grapes and makingwine, for example. I struggled to fulfill myrole as “anthropologist,” while my hostsenacted their own roles.Their attempts to behospitable often kept me from learning whatthey actually had to do to run a household.Instead of hospitality, people had most oftencalled my attention to Moldova’s cultural andspiritual wealth, and to their country’s beauty.These were the themes I was prompted todiscuss when meeting new people, and thethemes around which I had first learned tostructure my own toasts.

Yet even before my colleague’s going-away party, I had witnessed occasions whenindividuals were deeply offended by foreign-ers who did not recognize their attempts tobe hospitable. For example, the director ofthe local office of the International Researchand Exchanges Board urged me to under-stand what people were really like, and howthey made decisions regarding their relationswith strangers. He had been appalled once tooverhear a Peace Corps volunteer say that avillage family was making money off her staywith them. She paid them about $70 dollarsa month for room and board, and she did nochores.The woman she lived with even didher laundry.

Recounting these details, I was askedhow this American could have no idea thatwhat she paid in rent did not even pay forfood? How could she not know that peoplein Moldova would starve themselves to give aguest meat and other good food? How couldshe not know that this family was not mak-ing money, but in fact was probably spendingdearly to host her? When I asked what wouldmotivate a family to host a foreigner whoactually cost them extra money and house-work, the answer came without hesitation:The Peace Corps volunteer represented not asource of income but a language resource.

Local families, I was told, value hosting for-eigners because their children may learnanother language during the guest’s stay.

Hospitality, Ethnicity, and Nationality

During my fieldwork, I interacted most oftenwith Romanian-speakers. It is thereforeimportant to ask whether hospitality is only acentral value and source of identity for theRomanian-speaking citizens of Moldova, orwhether members of other ethnic groupsplace a similar value on being hospitable anddemonstrating hospitality. In general,Moldova’s citizens define ethnic groups bylanguage, and they expect to find culturalsimilarities and differences following thedivisions between languages and languagefamilies.As the examples below indicate,individuals notice and publicly remark onboth cultural similarities and differences thatdo not correspond to linguistic divisions.Although I had fewer interactions with non-Romanian-speakers, I found those I did meetengaged in discussions and evaluations ofhospitality that were similar to those of myRomanian-speaking contacts.

For example, there is a Russian wordthat is used equivalently with primitor(gostepriimnyi), and Russian-speakers warm toits use just as Romanian-speakers warm toprimitor. The director of the local office of theInternational Research and Exchanges Board,who was so upset by the American PeaceCorps volunteer, is both ethnicallyUkrainian, and a native of Transnistria. Onmultiple occasions, I also heard a Gagauzacquaintance contrast the hospitality offeredto guests in Moldova with that he had expe-rienced in Turkey. Perhaps the most strikingexample came one night while we were eat-ing dinner with a Romanian-speaking family.My Gagauz acquaintance wove together acompliment to our hosts, an explicit directivethat I should notice hospitality in Moldova,

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and a political statement that Romanian-speakers and Gagauz share a common cul-ture, by telling an anecdote about a weddinghe attended in Turkey.The wedding was astriking example of inhospitality because theguests had to pay to attend and were thenbarely fed. In contrast, he reminded me thatguests at weddings in Moldova can alwaysexpect plenty of food and are never expectedto pay for it.17

The perspectives on “hospitality” Iencountered with non-Romanian-speakersmay not be fully representative of“Ukrainian,”“Gagauz,” or even“Transnistrian” models of ideal host–guestrelations. Ethnic and regional differences inhospitality should certainly be further exam-ined before assuming that my account is fullyshared throughout Moldova.At the veryleast, however, my experience indicates thatnon-Romanian-speakers know and use asimilar discourse of hospitality to shape andevaluate the results of their interactions withstrangers.

Keeping track of what people had tosay about the hospitality they encounteredwhile traveling, I found that differences inhospitality (and culture in general) areexpected to coincide more closely with eth-nic divisions than with state borders.Thusthe drop in hospitality perceived byRomanian-speakers who travel to Romania,and for the Gagauz (who speak a Turkic lan-guage) when they travel to Turkey, is espe-cially upsetting and provokes negative com-ments. Conversely, cultural differences areexpected along state borders that correspondto ethnic boundaries. I soon learned that forcitizens of Moldova the world can be dividedinto more and less hospitable nations.

Here is the consensus on global hos-pitality as I came to understand it. Ukraineand Germany are not hospitable countries,and yet they are not without their merits.

Ukrainian women are excellent cooks andhard workers, whereas Germany is anextraordinarily clean and orderly country.France is a delightful but not terribly hos-pitable country; a guest is likely to be offeredonly a small cup of coffee.This is also thecase with Italy, except that the Italians areotherwise so much like Moldovans that onefeels very much at home there anyway.People in Moldova also have difficulty assess-ing American customs. Many visitors to thiscountry experienced great kindness and helpfrom Americans, but they were surprised bythe need to make appointments to see peoplewell in advance. Even with your neighbor,they discovered, you cannot just drop by fora visit. Conversely,Azerbaijan,Armenia, andthe rest of the Caucasus are considered truly,truly hospitable.A guest is always fedabsolutely fresh food, and sometimes a wholesheep is even killed, just so that the guest willhave fresh meat.

This synopsis conveys a generalappreciation for cultural diversity when dif-ferences coincide with the ethnically defined“national” boundaries of states.At the sametime, the ambiguity of Moldova’s ownnational identity is reflected in the attemptsthat ordinary citizens make to determine justwho among their co-citizens is as hospitableas “they” are.The Gagauz man cited abovemay insist that the Gagauz and Romanian-speakers in Moldova are equally hospitable,but this is just one position in a widerdebate. In other encounters, I discovered thatindividuals often suspect other ethnic groupsof being inhospitable. For example, I wit-nessed the distrust Romanian-speakers haveof Gagauz hospitality on multiple occasions. Ialso witnessed how individuals who haveexperienced the pleasant surprise of beingwell received in a Gagauz home will recitethe extraordinary details of their welcomewhen an appropriate occasion arises.

In other words, two kinds of narrative10

circulate in Moldova regarding ethnic rela-tions. One emphasizes irreconcilable moraland cultural differences, while the otherreports on a shared culture, a common valueof hospitality, and the ability to understandone another. Most important, both narrativesarise (at least in part) from individual experi-ences of being ill treated or well treated bymembers of another ethnic group. Finally, theaccepted standards of hospitality in Moldovaguide individuals in interpreting the balanceof positive and negative aspects of theirencounters across ethnic, as well as national,lines.

Successful multicultural societies buildon the values and aspirations their inhabitantsalready share (Parekh 2000).As was shownabove, the value of hospitality, and the rituals,customs, and everyday behaviors throughwhich it is demonstrated already unite thecitizens of Moldova. From their own reports,differences in hospitality also distanceMoldova’s many groups from their closestethnic neighbors across state lines.Yet indi-viduals are still surprised when confronted byevidence of this territorially defined aspect ofshared culture, and they do not fully recog-nize the potential implications of the com-mon value of hospitality for political culture.

RULES FOR OFFERING ANDRECEIVING HOSPITALITY

During my fieldwork in Moldova, I learnedmuch more about what good hosts do thanwhat good guests do.This is perhaps para-doxical because I was—in fact—a guest.However, my attempts to clarify how well Iwas performing the duties of a guest wereusually met with nonanswers.There are cer-tain minimal guidelines I did confirm: It isgood for guests to bring their hosts smallgifts—food, drink, flowers, and toys for chil-dren, for example.A guest ought to make aneffort to speak his or her host’s language as

well. In general, both hosts and guests are tobehave as if they “have seven years at home”(a Romanian expression that covers the basicetiquette and behaviors children are to havelearned before interacting with “society”).But if hospitality is a relation of exchange(Herzfeld 1992), what are guests to give theirhosts?

The Good Host

In Moldova, episodes of hospitality are social-ly important for what they reveal about thehost. Because hospitality is entwined withadult gender roles, particularly those relatedto household management and activity, themoral and social evaluation of individual menand women, as well as whole families,depends partly on the skill with which theydemonstrate hospitality.At a minimum, ahousehold demonstrates hospitality by offer-ing food and drink to guests. Hosts arepleased to have guests, and hurry to servethem as well and as quickly as possible.Whena household is expecting guests, lavish dis-plays of food are prepared in advance. Ifguests arrive unexpectedly, hosts still hurry toserve them.Women do the cooking. Menhave already made the wine, and hurry to thecellar to retrieve it. Sometimes guests areinvited into a household’s wine cellar todrink directly from the family’s wine barrels.Even when he is not receiving guests in hisown home, a man pours wine as a matter ofcourse to demonstrate that he could havemade the wine, and is therefore a good host.

Gender roles are reflected in demon-strations of hospitality, but the preparationand presentation of food and drink com-ments more meaningfully on the organiza-tion, management, and productivity of ahousehold. Because of the tremendousamount of work that goes into supplying ahousehold with food, the hospitality offeredby a household also demonstrates how hard

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and well the household works in general.Food can be difficult to procure. In the city,people tend to shop in markets because gro-cery stores are expensive and rare. Becausefew of the people I knew owned cars, mosthad to make frequent trips to the market onfoot or crowded public transit. In addition,some markets have lower prices, better prod-ucts or variety, or specialized products, andpeople regularly travel to several locations topurchase food and other necessities. Cityinhabitants are also involved in complex foodexchanges with their home villages.

In the villages, families buy relativelylittle of their food. Fruits and vegetables aregrown and picked, and animals (chickens,ducks, pigs) are raised in the house’s enclosedyard. Corn is shucked and then ground orkept for animal feed.Villagers often baketheir own bread; they also can and preservefruits and vegetables for winter.Wine andsome other liquors are also made at home;sugar beets are distilled in the north, andplums in other regions.Villagers must alsofind ways to obtain products they cannot eas-ily produce: wheat flour, refined sugar, teaand coffee, processed foods, and specialtyalcohols. In the city and village alike, peoplecelebrate with menus that include such prod-ucts as mayonnaise and tinned fish, andchampagne, cognac, vodka, and beer. Nomatter where one lives, celebrations can onlybe properly held if a household has cash tobuy these specialty products. Finally, villagehouseholds regularly produce food for cityfriends and relatives, which they give orexchange for processed foods, manufacturedgoods (medicines and cement, for example),or favors.

The production of a household’s sup-ply of wine is also hard work. Beyond thetechnical aspects of grape growing, harvest-ing, and processing, individuals need socialskills and connections to round up adequatehelp at harvest time.Wine making also

requires substantial planning and organiza-tion.Wine is a necessary household staple,and celebrations—including birthdays, reli-gious holidays, weddings, christenings, funer-als, and commemorations of the dead—can-not be held without it. If a household doesnot want to buy its wine from others, then itmust produce enough wine to last a wholeyear, and perhaps two, in case of a poor har-vest the following year.An especially diligenthousehold can also produce a wine surplus tosell or trade in exchange for goods and labor.Good hosts are not necessarily wealthy, butthey are industrious, well organized, capableof complex planning, and skilled at social andeconomic negotiations.

The Bad Guest

The “rules” of hospitality most immediatelyrequire hosts to welcome guests into theirhome, serve them food and wine, and takepleasure in their guests’ company.Yet whenpeople discuss actual instances of a host wel-coming a guest, it is clear that there are other“rules.”As was discussed above, the guest isexpected to have rudimentary social graces,but these are rarely outlined in the abstract,and lapses are rarely mentioned. Rules thatbecome explicit when discussing actual casesof hospitality are most immediately related tothe language used by host and guest.

In an ideal situation, hosts and guestsspeak the same language.When they do not,a good host will use the guest’s language, orat least the guest’s preferred language, duringtheir interaction.The host also has a respon-sibility to help a guest improve his or herlanguage skills, if and when possible. In turn,a good guest should exhibit the desire andwillingness to use the host’s language. Even ifa host begins by speaking the guest’s lan-guage, he or she can reasonably expect theguest to eventually switch to using the host’slanguage.

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An example of this dynamic occurredwhen a team of ethnographers I accompa-nied spent a few nights in a Gagauz village.Our host was the Gagauz man cited above;his wife, a Romanian-speaker, spoke with usin Romanian.Although the wife’s first lan-guage is Romanian, she and her husbandspeak Russian to each other.Thus, the“house” language could be considered eitherRomanian or Russian, depending on one’sperspective.18 Because all the other teammembers are Romanian-speakers, the wife’schoice as a hostess was clear: She spokeRomanian because it was her guests’ lan-guage. On the last day of our stay, however, itcame up that I had used Russian very littlesince coming to Moldova. Consequently,though my Romanian was improving to nearfluency, it was difficult for me to freely useRussian in regular conversations. My hostessapologized—had she known, she would havespoken in Russian to help me improve. Shesaid nothing of changing languages for thebenefit of the other team members, leadingme to conclude that she only lapsed in offer-ing hospitality to me (by not giving me thechance to learn the house language), but hadstill been correct in using Romanian withher other guests.The situation clearly givesrise to additional questions. For example, allthe other team members speak Russian flu-ently. Should they have spoken Russian whilevisiting their Gagauz colleague at home eventhough his wife is a Romanian-speaker?From the wife’s perspective, the importantquestion was whether she had extended hos-pitality as fully as possible, and she was dis-mayed to discover that she may have fallenshort in her interactions with me.

For hospitality to be fully realized, thehost depends on the guest to speak the host’slanguage.This was made clear to me whenthe aunt of my landlady’s ex-husband arrivedfrom Bucharest for a visit of several weeks.

During this visit, she spent much time withmy landlady and my landlady’s sister, visitingmutual friends and relatives, watching soapoperas, and talking. Inevitably, it seems, theconversation would turn to the status of theRomanian language in Moldova.The visitingaunt, who is herself from Moldova, butmoved to Bucharest as an adult, had nothingbut complaints. She complained about thenumber of Russian newspapers, about thequantity of Russian language programmingon television; and about the paucity ofRomanian being used in public places andthe media.

One day while she and I were eatinglunch, my landlady’s sister referred to the vis-itor. She said the românca (Romanian woman)only talks about how bad things are here inMoldova.While this was upsetting, my land-lady’s sister had been particularly upset by amoment when the woman corrected hernephew’s spoken Romanian. I quicklylearned that this was wrong; my landlady’ssister explained to me that the woman is aguest, and when guests come to visit you,you want to speak in your own language.Because they come to your house, she clari-fied, they have no right to command the lan-guage in which you speak to them. Here, Idiscovered a refinement to what I hadalready learned about hospitality: Goodguests should not place expectations ordemands on their host, especially regardinglanguage use.

WHOSE HOUSE IS MOLDOVA?CITIZENS AND STRANGERS,HOSTS AND GUESTS

As a dimension of political culture, the sharedvalue of hospitality can have two very differ-ent effects. It can unite and equally enfran-chise Moldova’s ethnic groups as citizens vis-à-vis the state. Or it can create and reifypolitical inequalities. For example, citizens

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already recognize a parallel between the lan-guage negotiations required in offering hos-pitality with the country’s current languagepolitics.Among Romanian-speakers, forexample, it is not uncommon to hear asser-tions that the state should stop entertainingthe possibility of having multiple official lan-guages. From their perspective, Romanianshould be the sole official and state language,and other ethnic groups (and foreigners)should learn and use Romanian while livingand working in Moldova.As the examplesbelow will indicate, individuals legitimate thisone-language policy by making allusions tothe normative practices between guests andhosts.Although arguments of this sort do“make sense,” their logic hinges on theimplicit assertion that Moldova is aRomanian-owned “house,” and that all non-Romanian-speakers are “guests.” Clearly,non-Romanian-speakers resist this line ofargumentation.As individual “hosts” them-selves, minority demands to “be at home,”linguistically and otherwise, make just asmuch sense.

As the previous examples indicate,individuals consider language use to be oneof the key features in distinguishing goodhost–guest relationships from bad ones.Although hospitality ostensibly depends onlyon household management, and is represent-ed by the ability and willingness to offerguests copious food and drink, hospitalityactually encompasses other social behaviors.Good hosts and guests alike are expected towelcome opportunities to use—and especial-ly to learn—languages other than their own.In the best case, the guest will speak thehost’s language, either because he alreadyknows it, or because he learns it from hishost.When this does not occur, hosts obligetheir guests, taking pleasure in both the ensu-ing interaction, and the chance to furtherdemonstrate their own skillfulness with lan-guages.When the guest does speak the host’s

language, even if he or she is not fluent, thenthe host can also feel “at home.”Thusalthough hosts value their ability to speakother languages to make guests feel “athome,” they also appreciate guests who makethe effort to learn and speak the host’s lan-guage.When this mutual exchange of lan-guages occurs, both host and guest can feel“at home.”

Hospitality is an especially aptmetaphor for describing ideal and normativerelations between ethnic groups in Moldova,because hosts and guests are supposed tonegotiate language use. Ethnic groups inMoldova are defined primarily by language,and the definition of national identity inMoldova has also depended largely on lan-guage politics.According to Soviet ethniccategories, the “Moldovans” were a distinctnation from the Romanians, and this differ-ence could be objectively documentedthrough the existence of two separate lan-guages.Today, the international and localconsensus is that “Moldovan” does not existas a distinct language from Romanian.19

A similar consensus has not beenreached regarding the question of whetherMoldovans and Romanians constitute a sin-gle people, ethnic group, nationality, ornation. Each of these terms carries connota-tions of political rights, sovereignty, and state-hood. Consequently, political debates regard-ing the choice of official and state languages,as well as minority language rights, double asdebates about how state power will be divid-ed among ethnic groups and regions. Becausethe model of hospitality outlines rules forlanguage use, the themes of exchange, gen-erosity, and rightful expectations that appearin discussions of good hosts and bad guestscan also be transferred to a discussion of thereal and ideal relations between ethnicgroups in Moldova.

During my fieldwork, I encountered

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a few occasions on which citizens intention-ally used the values of hospitality to makepolitical points. For example, the commentmade by my landlady’s aunt about her visit-ing relative was also meant to criticize theattitudes that Romania and Romanian citi-zens hold toward Moldova’s generally lenientpolicies regarding the use of Russian.Although my landlady’s aunt is a Romanian-speaker herself, she resents Romania’s intru-sion into Moldova’s domestic politics. In thevisitor’s defense, she was not just a visitorfrom Romania but also a senior family mem-ber who used to live in Chisinau.Thus, she(and her other family members) may wellhave expected that she was “coming home,”and was therefore not a “guest” but a seniorfamily and community member, who waswell within her bounds to comment critical-ly on pressing social issues like language.

As demonstrated in the followingexample, hospitality can also be used to makepointed political arguments about ethnicrelations and citizenship rights in the newstate. In May, I attended a rehearsal by a folkmusic ensemble.After the rehearsal, severalmusicians stayed to visit with each other; twomembers took up a collection and went tobuy wine, bread, pâté, mayonnaise, andlunchmeat from a nearby store.We spent anenjoyable hour together and then went ourseparate ways.Three of us (myself, the musi-cian who had invited me to the rehearsal,and his friend Andrei)20 were heading to thesame neighborhood, and Andrei suggested weprolong the evening. First we went to a side-walk café for beer, then to a second café forcoffee.

Language had been a topic of conver-sation in the first portion of the evening.Theearnest discussion over the differencesbetween “Moldovan,” and “Romanian,” hadgiven way to joking, but as we were drinkingcoffee,Andrei and Matei returned to the

topic of state language policies.The conversa-tion was reignited when Andrei asked howMatei and I had met; the occasion had beena festival for children’s folkloric ensemblesthe previous month. Matei mentioned that aGagauz ensemble had also attended the festi-val, and this prompted Andrei to comment atlength on language and the Gagauz. Hischoice of topics may have been equallyprompted by Matei’s aside to me that Ishould continue building my proficiency inRomanian.

At any rate,Andrei picked up theconversation and said that the language spo-ken by people did not matter.When he was astudent at the university, some Gagauz stu-dents came to his room one night, and theyplayed music together. He liked them somuch that he went to Comrat for two years.He lived in a dorm there, but he told his par-ents that he was staying in a hotel. He evenlearned some Gagauz.

At this point in the story, Matei askedwhether Andrei’s friends had stopped speak-ing Romanian as soon as he started to speaksome Gagauz.Andrei tried to avoid the ques-tion. Matei insisted, saying that the Gagauzshould speak Romanian, not Russian.Theyare not grateful, he said, that Stefan cel Maregave them the piece of land on which theyare now living.21 He continued, concedingthat it was okay for them to speak Gagauz,but they also needed to speak Romanian.Ideally, he said, there will be schools, andbooks and newspapers in Gagauz, so thateveryone can study in his own language. Butthe country is poor.Therefore, the Gagauzshould work with Romanians to buildMoldova.Andrei was visibly agitated by thedirection the discussion had taken. He rarelymade eye contact with Matei, began to lookfor the waitress, and continuously shifted inhis seat. Matei asked if Andrei disagreed.Andrei replied that Matei had missed the

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point.The conversation ended, and we soonleft.

This conversation is an excellentexample of the way in which the ordinaryrules of language use between hosts andguests can provide a model for the ideal ornormative relations between ethnic groups inthe political realm. Significantly,Andrei didnot dispute the factuality of Matei’s historicalaccount. It would have been easy to pointout that the Gagauz originally received landduring the reign of Catherine the Great, notunder Stefan cel Mare, but Matei is not talk-ing about history per se, and Andrei obvious-ly knew that. Matei was instead interested indemonstrating that the Gagauz ought to beloyal to Romanian-speakers, not Russians.He stops short of saying that the Gagauzshould assimilate, but he places the commoneconomic good of all citizens before the cul-tural rights of minorities.

Andrei refused to continue a politicaldiscussion, and he told Matei that he missedthe point of the story. He did not clarify itthen, but his story is actually straightforward:It is about ethnicity not being a barrier tofriendship, or even living together, and aboutAndrei’s own ability and willingness to learnanother language. In light of prevailingnotions about what makes a good guest,Andrei did the right thing when he learnedsome Gagauz while living in Comrat.Amongother things,Andrei was demonstrating tome (a “good” guest, because I was speakingRomanian) that he also was a “good” guest.

In fact, Matei did understand Andrei’spoint. He simply twisted it around, pointingout that the way Andrei tells the storyimplies that he was living “at home” with theGagauz. He makes the counterargument thatthe Gagauz are really living on Moldovanterritory—that is, in a Romanian-speaking“house.” Matei agrees that Andrei was a goodguest on the micro level, but he wants toknow if the Gagauz were also good guests at

the macro level. Did they continue speakingRomanian with Andrei, even after he hadlearned some Gagauz? That is, did theyacknowledge their debt to Moldovans thatwas established when Stefan cel Mare found-ed Moldova, and gave the Gagauz theirhome?

As Matei’s question indicates, it ispossible to imagine the Moldovan state as ahousehold. In this situation, some ethnicgroups can be imagined as hosts, and othersas guests.At this point, hospitality ceases tobe a mere reflection of the host’s generosity,industriousness, skillfulness, and social andmoral standing. Hospitality becomes a meansthrough which the “owners of the house”can “impose obligations of eventual reciproc-ity and the acknowledgement of moralindebtedness on the recipient” (Herzfeld1992, 171). By dividing Moldova’s ethnicgroups, all of which have been present on theterritory for at least two hundred years, into“hosts” and “guests,” the shared value of hos-pitality is used to impose and legitimateinequalities along ethnic lines.

As a dimension of political culture,the shared value of hospitality can create andreify political inequalities.At least some ofMoldova’s citizens, including some of themost politically “pro-Romanian” individualsI encountered, are not indifferent to the neg-ative social and political effects of buildingthe new state as an exclusively “Romanian”house.As Matei recognizes, the ideal situationwould be for Moldova to have an economyand infrastructure capable of supporting thecountry’s ethnic and linguistic diversity. If thecountry were better developed, he suggests,the current discourse (that even he perpetu-ates) about who “owes” whom loyalty in theform of linguistic assimilation and ethnic sol-idarity would be unnecessary. Even with animproved economy, however, the politicalculture requires shaping. In Moldova, the taskis to encourage citizens to recognize how

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hospitality can unite and equally enfranchisethem both individually and as members ofethnic groups, as citizens vis-à-vis the state.

THE PROMISE AND PITFALLS OFHOSPITALITY IN POLITICS

Political theory and international relationshave long used the concept of “internationalhospitality” to discuss the relations, rights,and mutual obligations that obtain between a“host” state and newcomers (Cavallar 2002).At one extreme,Vitoria posited that foreign-ers can expect “freedom of residence, nation-alization, and citizenship” (quoted in Cavallar2002, 3) and have the right to force their“hosts” to grant these privileges. Other theo-rists insist that guests have no natural rightsto the privileges of citizenship but may begranted privileges out of the host’s ownbenevolence and goodwill. From yet anotherperspective, Kant suggests that foreignershave some rights—to visit, for example—butthat they must be peaceable and hospitableduring their visit and must leave within areasonable time. Longer “visits” or more per-manent living arrangements require specialpacts between the receiving and sendingstates, and do not necessarily require thereceiving state to grant citizenship.

Recent scholarship and global debateson international law, migration, refugees, andhuman rights have reinvigorated “hospitality”as a political concept.The trend has been todefine both states and legal citizens as “hosts”in opposition to alien “guests.” In the politi-cal realm, as in ordinary relations of hospitali-ty, guests are expected to acknowledge thegenerosity bestowed by their hosts.Yet thehost–guest relation is riddled with potentialproblems: Hosts fail to offer hospitality, guestsare not grateful, may be dangerous, andsometimes fail to leave (Rosello 2001, 18,33). Recently, social critics have closelyexamined the French discourse on “hospitali-

ty” to demonstrate that country’s failure tooffer the “hospitality” it promises to immi-grants.

For example, Ben Jelloun (1999)argues that—contra public and political dis-course—France does not have an immigra-tion “problem.”The problem is rather thatFrance is reneging on its own, self-ascribedrole as “host” and failing to offer “hospitality.”According to him, hospitality is

“a reciprocal right to protection andshelter,” or more simply, the act oftaking someone into one’s homewithout any thought of recompense.It brings together an action (a wel-come), an attitude (the opening ofoneself to the face of another,whether that somebody is poor or apassing traveler, and the opening ofone’s door and the offering of thespace of one’s house to a stranger),and a principle (disinterestedness).(1999, 1–2)

In concentrating on the actions of itsguests, France has failed to remain a disinter-ested host. In contrast, a good host wouldtake the following position:“I have dutiestoward other people, just as they have dutiestoward me. But the only duties I have tobother about are my own. If the other personwon’t play the game and doesn’t obey therules, that’s his business. . . . His attitudes,shortcomings, or betrayals are no affair ofmine.The important thing is that I myselfshould do my duty and respect him” (BenJelloun 1999, 5). Moreover, the official formsof “hospitality” being invoked by the Frenchstate in immigration policies, citizenship laws,and the (legal) rights of immigrants are atodds with the forms of hospitality that markeveryday social life in France.Thus, evenFrench citizens are not really hosts in theirown “home” state because they can be pun-ished for offering real hospitality (in the formof shelter or assistance) to unauthorized

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“guests” (see also Rosello 2001, 37).As contemporary debates about

immigration, citizenship, and national identi-ty in France illustrate, building a political cul-ture around the concept of hospitality canboth generate conflict and contribute to itsresolution. How can the existing values ofhospitality be shaped and applied to promotea sense among all Moldova’s ethnic groupsthat they belong to a common political com-munity, and are all hosts of a common statehousehold? Perhaps the solution is close towhat Ben Jelloun suggests: Hosts should notfocus on assessing their guest’s behavior.Aproductive discourse on civic hospitalitywould not seek to distinguish “guests,” definethem primarily by their relation to hosts,judge how well the host–guest relation hasbeen conducted, or expect a guest’s gratitudeto be of equal measure to a host’s generosity.

The above examples suggest some ofthe ways in which existing political tensionscan be transferred into the idiom of hospital-ity without being significantly reformulated.For example, from the perspective of some-one who identifies as a “Moldovan,”“Romanians” often fail to acknowledge theirreal status as “guests,” and meddle inMoldova’s internal affairs as if they were“family.”Thus, the existing tensions betweenMoldova and Romania could be reconceptu-alized as an ongoing breach in hospitality.Domestically, Romanian-speakers may recon-figure their dissatisfaction with the Gagauzand Transnistrians for demanding variousforms of cultural and political rights andautonomy. For the Romanian-speaking“hosts,” the Gagauz and Slavic-speakers whodominate Transnistrian politics are simply badguests who fail to recognize their hosts’ gen-erosity.

Transnistria also serves as a potentexample of how the “Russians” perpetuallytake advantage of Moldovan hospitality, eat-ing the local population “out of house and

home,” as it were.A common complimentRomanian-speakers made when they heardme speaking Romanian was “the Russianshave been here for a hundred years, andhaven’t learned Romanian.” From the ruleson language exchange outlined above, theinterpretation is clear: Russians epitomize the“bad guest.”Again from the perspective ofRomanian-speakers, any concessions the statemakes to minorities, especially in the domainof language, has the effect of making themfeel like “guests in their own home.”Although the “hosts” are continually obligedto speak a language other than their own, the“guests” benefit from their hosts’ unceasinggenerosity.

In their turn, every ethnic minorityin Moldova can also claim that the currentand dominant status of Romanian languageand culture renders them permanent “guests”who are perpetually indebted to their“hosts.” Clearly, simply translating Moldova’sexisting debates on collective rights to statepower into the idiom of hospitality will notsubstantially change ethnic relations.

Hospitality’s power in the politicaldomain relies on its ability to establish andnaturalize a metaphoric relation betweenhow an individual behaves “at home” andhow he or she behaves as a citizen. In every-day life, every adult in Moldova is assumed tobe a host or hostess. Some fulfill this socialrole better than others:They are more gener-ous, or have more to give; but no one isexpected to permanently take on the socialof role of “guest.” One is only a guest tem-porarily; it is a situational identity, rather thana core or salient one.Writing about hospitali-ty in Crete, Herzfeld notes that the commoninjunction for a guest to behave “as if in hisown house” carries several implications,among which is the possibility that the hostmay one day be received in his guest’s house(1987, 77–8).At a minimum, individuals whorecognize that they are surrounded by other

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hosts engage in equal exchanges and recog-nize their mutual responsibilities.Thus a pro-ductive discourse on civic hospitality inMoldova would assume that all individualsare (potential) hosts, and ask what relations(should) obtain between two or more hostswhen they interact.

CONCLUSION

As an element of shared culture, hospitalitycan inform attempts to develop political cul-ture in two main ways. First, demonstrationsof hospitality in ordinary life reveal thatMoldova’s citizens already have a model forinteracting with strangers, and that thismodel includes special provisions for inter-acting with strangers who speak a differentlanguage. In other words, hospitality providesa medium for people to translate the princi-ples of their interactions with individualmembers of different ethnic groups and lan-guage communities into the more abstractprinciples that underlie ideal political rela-tions between ethnic groups and languagecommunities.As my examples indicate, indi-viduals already engage in this kind of politi-cal imagining. Policymakers can thereforeengage Moldova’s citizenry in a discussion ofethnic relations through the rhetoric of hos-pitality, encouraging political life to developaround what people already “know”; namely,there are ways to practice ethnic and linguis-tic tolerance that do not require some groupsto be dominant and others to be subordinate.The difficulty in this approach will be shift-ing the political discussion away from divid-ing ethnic groups into “hosts” and “guests,”and exploring what a community of “hosts”must do.

Hospitality, however, also supports thissecond level of developing a tolerant politicalculture. Specifically, language rules emergeonly from the practice of hospitality.As acultural ideal, hospitality is not understood as

a relation of exchange between a host andguest but as a gift freely given by the host.Opportunities to offer hospitality are valuedby individuals in Moldova precisely becausethey provide an opportunity to demonstratethat individual’s goodness (because he or she“does the right thing” by offering hospitali-ty), as well as his or her skillfulness in house-hold management.As I have already demon-strated, household management involvesadditional skills such as economic forecastingand planning, resource management, andsocial relations.A host or hostess is first andforemost a steward of material as well associal goods and resources.

There is much to gain by shiftingnational political discourse in Moldova to therhetoric of hospitality.This shift can be initi-ated through the channel of language rightsand ethnic relations. Ultimately, the discourseshould be shifted to incorporate the wholeset of cultural values attached to hospitality asthe model for political culture and a civicform of national identity. Such a shift, how-ever, can probably not be unilaterally accom-plished by Moldova’s political leadership, norshould it be in the new democraticstructure.22 One of the strongest Soviet lega-cies in this country is a pervasive suspicion ofany and all government attempts to “engi-neer” ethnic and social relations. Changes inthe system of political representation couldhelp off-set some, but not all, suspicion ofgovernment and political activities.Whileseeking to enlarge the share of “real” owner-ship citizens have in the state, Moldova’s gov-ernment should also avoid making heavy-handed and sudden decisions related to eth-nic and national identity.

The sudden publication and attemptto implement a “history of Moldova” inMoldova’s schools in early 2002 is one suchexample of a government initiative that gen-erated a public backlash of “pro-Romanian”

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sentiment. Replacing Moldova’s currentpostindependence educational curriculum inthe “History of Romanians” is not a badidea.23 Indeed, a history of the independentrepublic could foster a shared patriotism andnational pride across ethnic lines, contribut-ing to the country’s future unity and stability.But politically active Romanian-speakersrejected this history manual because it camefrom the government and because it repli-cates Soviet-style histories. History books,school curricula, citizenship education, publicservice messages, pageantry, and other tech-niques of nation building are unlikely to suc-ceed in fostering Moldova’s development as amultiethnic state, unless they are developedand promoted by citizens themselves.Furthermore, they must be created not aspolitical tools but as the spontaneous andnatural projects of scientists, scholars, educa-tors, homeowners, villages and neighbor-hoods, musicians and artists, groups offriends, and the like.

Because Moldova’s political culturecannot be easily instituted from the topdown, the challenge is to support, encourage,and enable Moldova’s inhabitants to applytheir existing and shared value of hospitalityin the political realm.A first step might be toprovide opportunities through which mem-bers of different ethnic groups, as well asregions, can discover both the depth andnuances of this widespread value of hospitali-ty. Many people already experience cross-ethnic commonality as individuals, but thecollective knowledge built up through small-scale exchanges and discussions amongfriends and family is not yet widely or pub-licly acknowledged as having political andsocial import beyond the limited scope ofindividual and household reactions to “oth-ers.” Educational efforts in multiple lan-guages, not just teaching Romanian to non-Romanians or expecting Romanians to

speak Russian, should accompany these morediverse intercultural exchanges.24

Second, the close ties between hospi-tality and economic self-sufficiency suggestthat for people to behave as “hosts” in publiclife, they must have the means to be a “host.”Enabling people to be hosts requires a secondset of initiatives focused on “ownership” thatmight well encompass economic programsdesigned to give individuals greater controlover their financial well-being, as well associal and political programs that provideindividuals with opportunities to “own” theirlocal communities and the state. In short, Iam suggesting that by incorporating theexpectation that people in Moldova want tobe “hosts” as often and completely as possi-ble, the full range of “transition” programs—whether originating abroad or locally inMoldova—can be tailored to promote andsupport the development of a civic and eth-nically tolerant national identity.

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NOTES

1 I am indebted to Ambassador William Hill for pro-viding the succinct description “zero-sum game.”2 Suny (1995) and Slezkine (1994), for example, bothdescribe how Soviet political structures, institutions,procedures, and even ideology encouraged “ethnic”politics to flourish and generated ethnic conflicts.Verdery (1993) attributes the persistence and periodicintensification of ethnic conflict in Romania moregenerally to the political and economic centralizationinherent in all socialist states.3 Kymlicka (1998) outlines general weaknesses in howWestern liberal democracies have historically addressedethnic relations and ethnocultural rights. He also offerssome guidelines for applying liberal principles in EastCentral Europe, but he reminds us that the West hasno models or solutions for some of the dilemmas inpostcommunist Europe.Additionally, postcommunistcountries will not eliminate the centrality of ethnicidentity from public and political life merely by adapt-ing liberal-democratic norms:“Controversies and con-flicts over the management of ethnocultural diversitywon’t go away, or spontaneously resolve themselves.They are a permanent and enduring feature of liberal-democracies which must be tackled head-on” (p. 320).4 In American politics at least, conflict is valued andencouraged to the extent that it indicates active andequal participation between different interest groups,including ethnic groups.As Beissinger and Hajda(1990) suggest,American ethnic politics provide apoor model for understanding ethnic politics in theformer Soviet Union. Despite surface resemblances ofideology and rhetoric, the Soviet Union was neither a“melting pot” nor an “ethnic mosaic.”To conceive ofSoviet nationalities as temporary epiphenomena or as“pressure groups” is equally inadequate.5 Brubaker introduced the term “nationalizing state”to stress that the national identity of a state is con-stantly being formed, reformed, contested, andchanged.A nationalizing state is “a dynamically chang-ing field of differentiated and competitive positions orstances adopted by different organizations, parties,movements, or individual figures within and aroundthe state, competing to inflect state policy in a particu-lar direction, and seeking, in various and often mutu-ally antagonistic ways, to make the state a “real”nation-state, the state of and for a particular nation”(1996, 66).The dynamism of national identity is par-ticularly evident in new states, where the basic choicebetween ethnic and civic models of identity is beingdebated, as well as the particular content of both. Even

in more established states, successive articulations ofthe country’s national identity will contain both civicand ethnic elements (see also Smith 1991, 13), but onemodel will dominate the ongoing discourse.6 My response to the Romanian-Moldovan question(discussed below) is to refer to all members of the eth-nic majority in the Republic of Moldova asRomanian-speakers. My choice is an attempt to accu-rately reflect social identities as I encountered themduring fieldwork. Namely, I found that most peopleaccepted that the “Moldovan” language was the sameas the “Romanian” language, but that their ethnicidentification as Romanian or Moldovan shifts situa-tionally; there are very few Romanian-speakers whodo not sometimes refer to themselves as “Romanians”and at other times “Moldovans.” Nevertheless, becauseno one (of any ethnicity) uses “Moldovan” to refer tonon-Romanian-speakers, I also prefer to use termslike “citizens” or “population” when I am not focusingon ethnic identity. Context determines my use of“Moldovan” as an adjective; in this paper, I havealways meant to be ethnically inclusive when using“Moldovan nation, ”“Moldovan state,” or “Moldovanidentity.”7 I cite Brittanica’s figures because they show less evi-dence of rounding census figures than do other avail-able sources, including U.S. Central IntelligenceAgency factsheet figures.8 Chinn and Roper (1998, 92) also identify a parlia-mentary report on minorities published in 1989 as the“final blow” to cooperation between Gagauz politicalleaders and the Popular Front.This report identifiedGagauz as an ethnic minority, not an indigenous peo-ple. Unfortunately, Chinn and Roper do not fullyexplain the significance of this reclassification.9 List-Moldova (moldova@yahoogroups.com), main-tained by Adrian Evtuhovici (evtuhovici@noos.fr),carried several news items on the federalization plan,its near ratification, and the criticisms it met duringlate November 2003.10 Ukrainians and Russians are predominantly urbandwellers, concentrated in the northern and easternportions of the country, whereas the Gagauz andBulgarians reside almost exclusively in southern vil-lages; Romanian-speakers are spread throughout thecountry but remain concentrated in rural areas.11 Bessarabia refers to all the land, north to south,between the Prut and Dneister Rivers, whileTransnistria corresponds with the land east of theDnesiter River.12 Hülya Demirdirek is a Norwegian-trained socialanthropologist conducting ethnographic research in

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Gagauz Yeri. Local ethnographers with whom I hadcontact in Moldova also document many cultural sim-ilarities between the country’s ethnic groups.13 I am using Smith’s categorization of nations andnational cultures (1991, 110–12).14 I am using Stryker’s (1980, 61) discussion ofsalience. Stryker notes that because individuals usuallyperform multiple social roles, it is necessary to distin-guish the salience of the multiple social identities thataccompany these roles.The most salient identities arethose that are invoked most frequently when an indi-vidual interacts with others.15 Moldova had the fourth highest number of ethni-cally mixed families in all the Soviet republics, with179 per 1,000 families in 1970 being multiethnic.Latvia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan had higher totalnumbers of ethnically mixed families, but Moldova’surban areas had the highest number (nearly doubleother urban areas) of ethnically mixed families any-where in the Soviet Union, with 344 per 1,000 in1970 (Fisher 1980, 218). Interethnic marriage rates arenot a fail-safe measure of either ethnic exclusivity orinclusivity, but they do indicate the possibility thatindividuals have access to, and cultural knowledge of,other groups.16 Unless otherwise noted, words in italics areRomanian.17 An American might disagree with this, citing thefact that guests do give money to the bride andgroom during weddings in Moldova at least twice:when they greet the bride and groom at the entry tothe wedding feast, and in the middle of the feast whena collection is taken.18 Each parent speaks his or her first language withthe children, meaning that the children are trilingual,speaking Gagauz, Romanian, and Russian.19 Dyer (1996) provides a succinct and comprehensiveanalysis of the proposed “Moldovan language.”20 I have changed individual names to provideanonymity and retain confidentiality.21 The origins of the Gagauz in Moldova are contest-ed. However, the general agreement (see King 2000,211) is that they came between the 1780s and 1870sin conjunction with the Russo-Turkish wars. Matei’sargument is thus not historically accurate, since ªtefancel Mare lived in the fifteenth century. He maintainedthis line of argument on other occasions, however, andwas clearly aware of the historical discrepancies.22 In fact, an analysis of political parties, their names,symbols, and platforms may indicate that the basic ideaof seeing Moldova as a common “house” already

exists.The overall parameters of the discourse onnational identity, as outlined above, tend to focus thedebate as a choice between different models of an eth-nically defined (even if multiethnic) “nation,” andattempts to move away from ethnicity as a centralpolitical issue are greeted with suspicion (even whensupported) because such moves often resemble Sovietprograms and agendas.23 Solonari (2002) provides a detailed comparison ofhow the “history of Moldova” and “history ofRomanians” are presented in recent textbooks.Thebasic narratives of both histories, he concludes, fail to“imagine Moldovan collectivity” in ways that corre-spond with reality, and fail to yield “humane” histories(p. 445).The “history of Romanians” replicates thenational exclusivity of Romanian historiographies,whereas the “history of Moldova” replicates many ofthe xenophobic tendencies of Soviet historiography.24 Neukirch (1999) provides a succinct analysis of theproblems involved in current efforts to teachRomanian to non-Romanian-speakers. Briefly, thereare problems at the levels of funding, implementation,and recruitment.

22

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