Paula Erizanu in Ruse: You can be Moldovan, Romanian, Londoner and European at the same time. Moldovans are by nature polyglots and cosmopolitans

The Bridge of Friendship, 9 October 2024

Moldovan writer and journalist Paula Erizanu presented her forthcoming book, which gathers the human stories of Moldovans from different ethnic and social groups, at the Canetti House in Ruse during the Literature Festival on October 4, 2024. The meeting was one of the main events of the traditional annual literary festival. The event, which drew attention to the experiences of the inhabitants of the Republic of Moldova in the 20th century and the turning points in their lives as well as in the social development of the country, was supported by the Romanian Cultural Institute. Below is the transcript.

Vladimir Mitev:

Hello!

Thank you for coming to this meeting with Moldovan writer and journalist Paula Erizanu. I think it will be an interesting conversation.

Paula Erizanu was born in 1992 and has been successful in both literature and journalism. She has degrees in art history as well as journalism from UK universities. In addition, her articles have appeared in the Financial Times, Guardian, New York Times, the most prestigious media in the English-speaking world. She has also written several books.

In 2011, her first book came out – “This is my first revolution. Steal it”, which is dedicated to the so-called Twitter Revolution in 2009 in Moldova. This historical moment may not be very well known in Bulgaria, but it was a moment when pro-European parties came to power for the first time in the Moldovan transition. There is talk of a revolution or protests that are being led by young people in Moldova and I think Paula is part of the generation that believes that this revolution is theirs. This book was awarded a prize by UNESCO-Germany in Leipzig at a subsequent event.

In addition, Paula Erizanu has a book of poetry, but there is also a book about Soviet feminists in the early USSR, which also received a literary prize in Romania.

We are gathered here to talk about a book that is not yet in print. It is in preparation. It is a book that will look at the history and identity of the Republic of Moldova in the 20th century and it is based on human stories, on people and their vicissitudes, and these people he spoke to are usually people from minorities and people who have a more interesting, more telling destiny as a story. Some of the stories, for example, if it’s about the Jewish community. They talk about the suffering that these people went through, whether it’s World War I, when there were pogroms, or World War II.

If it is about the German community, for example, one of the interviewees in this book talks about how he tried and managed to escape from the USSR and made it to Austria. There is also an account by a representative of the Roma community, which is also interesting because she is one of the leaders of the Roma community in Moldova today.

Do not say everything…

…If we have emotions for the Republic of Moldova, I suppose they should refer to all its inhabitants – not just the Bulgarians in it. According to the conversation plan that we have agreed with the Elias Canetti International Society, after this presentation I will ask Paula to read a short excerpt from the book in Romanian, then Victor (the Canetti Society collaborator – translator’s note) will read this quote in Bulgarian, and then we will have a chance to talk. I may ask some questions, but you in the audience can also ask questions based on what we sketch or what you are interested in about the identity and history of the people of the Republic of Moldova.

Paula, is there anything else you want to say before we read the prepared excerpt from the book?

Thank you for having me. I am impressed by your memory – you remembered a lot of things about me.

I am also impressed that Paula understands Bulgarian without having studied it. This is another proof that Moldovans are polyglots by birth.

This is my second time in Ruse. I was here about 12 years ago for the so-called festival of ideas. I loved it then and I love it now. You live in a beautiful urban environment. Thank you for having me here.

At first I was planning to write a second book about Alexandra Kolontay and Inessa Armand, the Soviet feminists who were the subject of my book The Woods are Burning. But when Russia invaded Ukraine, I realized this project could wait a bit. That’s when I prioritized another idea I’d been thinking about for a few years – the possibility of writing a book about my family history. My great-great-grandmother, Claudia, lived in the same village all her life, but she was born in the Russian Empire, studied in Romania. After that, she did not want to join the Soviet kolkhoz, and for a while she had a one-person farm – that is, she farmed her own land. But eventually she was forced into the kolkhoz. Then she lived as a pensioner in independent Moldova. So she lived in four countries, living in one village.

After telling her story, I thought about other people who lived in similar villages and what stories they might have. So I talked and recorded the stories of people of different ethnicities – Jews, Roma, Bulgarians, Germans, etc. Each of them had a different version of life in Moldova. For example, for the Jews and Roma, events such as the pogroms or the Holocaust radically changed their lives. For my ancestors, the Russian and Soviet occupation of Bessarabia was the event that shook them.

The event was a turning point at which everyone was able to recognize his or her history, and every history is correct because the person in question lived it. But at the same time, when they put these stories together, there is a contradiction between them. That’s life. We all have different versions of our lives and our community.

My parents studied journalism in Moldova in the 1980s, studying their respective majors in Romanian, written in Cyrillic. But on the other hand, when they studied history, they had to learn it in Russian. This was the official Soviet history.

I was born after the changes, when Moldova was an independent country. In Moldova now we learn history in Romanian. And I try to make this effort, on the one hand to go beyond the imperialist version of history, on the other hand the nationalist version of history, and to offer a vision of the history of my country that is based on human stories. Some of the themes in the book will have to do with the deportations of the Moldovan population or the great famine created by Stalin. But I will also tell other stories that people share with me sometimes by chance, while traveling by train, for example, or in other ways, on other subjects. I want to bring back oral history and the story told in literature. I’m trying to recover and preserve stories that couldn’t be told before, for various reasons.

Now I will read just two paragraphs from a story told to me by a woman on the friendship train between Chisinau and Bucharest. This train traveled all night. It is a very good time to listen to stories. This train looks very Soviet. My parents hate it. I love it.

If I can introduce something here, there is a song by the Moldovan rock band Zdob and Zdub called Trenulețul, which is dedicated to this train.

Yes, this song is in Eurovision.

About my book, it has a hundred different versions of a title. I haven’t chosen yet when the exact version will be. Let’s say the working version at the moment is “Unforgivings”

[Paula Erizanu reads a few sentences from the excerpt of her book in Romanian]

[Victor Kirilov reads the whole excerpt in Bulgarian:]

Well, girls

Well, girls, where have I not been. I used to work in trade – apart from two years working with lead, in the factory, putting molds for military radars that were used near Japan, I know, our boys were there and they told us, rather disappointed, that what we were doing was put at the bottom of the ocean.

I had my son when the Soviet Union fell. There was nothing then. Pardon me for speaking like this in our local dialect. As the Italian guy I worked with for a few months said – after the fall of the Soviet Union, I was col culo per terra. With my ass on the ground. We lived in my mother-in-law’s apartment, no birds, no animals. You had to stand in line for milk. Me with a small child… Wages were months late. We invested wrongly all our savings. There were privatization schemes then. So I said to my husband, “Let’s go to St. Petersburg to see if I can buy something there and sell it back home. I made a thousand euros then. Yes, I see the products are brought from Istanbul and Peking. Beijing, yes. I think to myself: if they bring products from there, it makes sense, they’ve done some calculations and it’s cheaper. Why don’t I go straight to the Turks, no detour through Piter?

God, girls, see how dirty this carpet is? Pardon me, I haven’t traveled by train in a long time, but it hasn’t changed since the ’80s. This carpet should be thrown out. I’m going now to get my Romanian ID, you don’t know, with this war, I might need it. My God, the clerk who received my packet of documents was so nasty… In the old center was the office. He was nasty to everybody. Maybe he’s changed now, he’s young. I told him… My grandmother is buried in Râmnicu-Vâlcea.

Grandpa went back home in 1944 to get some things after he emigrated. The Russians closed the border. He didn’t see him for eleven years, he didn’t write anything. It was only after Stalin died that they were allowed to visit each other. Excuse me, I got nervous. Grandpa was living with another woman, he had a child with her. He died a year after grandma came back. Heart attack. He was sixty years old, as old as I am. But I’m not ready to die!

I think my blood pressure went up. I got nervous. That’s what happens, my blood pressure goes up and I get snot out of nowhere.

I forgot. Oh, Istanbul. My husband went first, but he came up with some nonsense… Bad quality bras, stinky pomade you couldn’t even put on your lips. So I said: forget it, I’ll go. Back then, leather was in. So I started buying leather shorts. Yes, the Turks would show you one quality in the window and put something else in your bag after you bought. The numbers didn’t match… I was looking at the back. The back was bulging… I was pressing them to straighten them. My boss told me, the workers work at night and they take whatever number they can get, they mess up the front and back, out of sleeplessness. And then I said: our Moldavians are stupid? Let me buy leather and sew. I only knew how to sew a button then, but I learned. At first, I didn’t want to buy the most expensive leather. But my boss told me there was no point otherwise. It went well… I sold at the market. Until leather went out of fashion.

Then I started to go to Peking, to buy fur. There in the center street it was nice, with flowers, neat. But as you walked down the side streets, it stunk… I don’t know, they didn’t have proper sewage or whatever… One thing I’m sorry I didn’t go to see… this, what’s it called… The wall. The Chinese Wall. I kept saying I’d go next time, I’ve been to Peking seven times, but I never made it… I was supposed to get something in a store, but I didn’t want to pay the rent… Then health problems started and I had to close the company…

Girls, with the hormonal system you work, it wakes you up, you go to bed. Everything depends on hormones. I had some thyroid problems and I couldn’t work. That’s when I started listening to Dr. Berg. He’s American, but I listen to him in Russian translation. I think someone’s going to kill him, as he calls them directly. He says: “Beef must be beef that’s seen the sun, that’s been outside. It’s good heart and liver. Once a week you should eat it. It’s full of fat vitamins, iron. What, you’ve cleared customs? It’s a good thing they didn’t check my luggage, because I have eggs for my sister… Oh, we have another customs? I thought we’d be done, if he changed the tires. Just don’t take them, she wanted eggs from my poultry, she called me to ask me to bring them..

We eat eggs every day. A couple. I put them in the pan with a little bacon – that’s healthy fat, not like margarine and these vegetable fats. And then I don’t eat until four, it keeps me going. We eat fruit in moderation. Bread, potatoes – not at all, as Dr. Berg recommends. My husband has second-degree diabetes, so he’s holding on. From 120 kilos he’s down to 90. Listen to Dr. Berg, look him up on the Internet.

I’ve been to Dubai before, girls, and I remember the hotel was like a ship with sails, how everything was colorful, every table, every chair, every wall brought you joy, unlike here, with these dusty colors from the train. I remember seeing a truck full, full of red roses…. I’ve never seen so many roses in one place. And I couldn’t understand why so many roses? Yes, I asked someone and he told me that they put flowers everywhere when the sheiks meet. They make compositions. In Dubai, when a boy is born, they give 50,000 dollars. Can you imagine, girls? Yes, only those born there get it, a third of the population. Two-thirds are laborers from other countries, from India, working for the locals. They had a sheikh who also shared with the population. I also went on safari then. I went to Dubai mostly for a trip, to China and Turkey for work. I traveled a lot.

Girls, get out of where you’re not comfortable. I lived so much in a house where I didn’t feel comfortable and, since I moved into this new house, I feel different. I’ve even built a workshop upstairs, but who knows if I’ll still be working. The most important thing is insulation. You don’t so much create heat as maintain it. I have some darker windows, but it gets very hot in the sun. I have solar panels. I brought them from Taiwan. I didn’t want to hook up to Union Fenosa. And geothermal, I want to get geothermal. I don’t use gas. We’re still building the house, but we live in it. For years.

Not like the neighbors, who built their houses in two years, for money they stole, not earned. I’m not lying – I paid all the taxes, I didn’t want any trouble. Yes, the neighbors… in two years they finished their houses, they had to wait for the concrete to dry, otherwise they’d have done them in a jiffy. In one day. One raised money for Plahotniuc (the leading oligarch of Moldovan transition – note of the translator), the other I think he helped him. I’m honest. They started building the road, they asked us for money, but why should I give money for something the city hall has to build? After they built it, they blocked our way home. He put the tractor there. Hey, man, I said, how can I go home? I called the police, I called the city, but they said they didn’t know anything, that there’s no authorization for this road. How can there be no authorization? You can’t put a straw on a public road without authorization. Maybe someone took a bribe and turned a blind eye.

I wanted to get my water hooked up, you know how long it took? Nine months! Each signature takes a month. It’s like he’s giving you a handout. Now I have to dig seven meters to the sewer. Only authorized companies can dig, and my son forgot that they’re all founded by people from the ministry, i.e. through intermediaries, relatives, like in Plahotniuc’s time. One asked me 3000 euros to dig seven meters, another 20 000 lei, another 15 000 lei. For seven meters! I’d dig it, but you have to have authorization from the Water Canal. There must be a scheme going on, you’re a journalist. In Germany you pay 1,500 euros and they’ll draw water. I just paid 2,000 euros. And I still have no water. In Romania there’s a law that from now on you don’t pay for the connection, the state pays.

My God, how the Russians bombed Ukraine these days, Christmas, New Year…

And how they send their soldiers without shoes with their number, with expired food… That’s how they always treated men. When they came in 44, they destroyed everything. 

My great-grandfather died in the war in Japan. In 1905.

When the war started, I called my sister in Romania to say to come to her in case of anything.

And I took a hundred or so brand-new, unworn, little puffies I had left in the garage and gave them to the refugees. Because, my God, how some came in the cold, with only a bag in one hand and a child in the other… When the poor came, the rich came first.

Are you asleep? I’m going to sleep too, but the old lady can’t sleep on the mattress for all this noise…

Vladimir Mitev:

Thank Paula and Victor for what they read. We don’t talk much about the similarities between Bulgarian and Moldovan society. There are different similarities. For example, 10 years ago, not only in Bulgaria, but also in the Republic of Moldova, huge funds disappeared from the banks. In the Republic of Moldova, a billion dollars disappeared from three banks and this was called the ‘theft of the century’.

Another similar thing, which also emerges from this quote, is that Bessarabia is always on the periphery of a big country or empire – the Russian Empire, Romania, the European Union, because now the Republic of Moldova is trying to join the European Union. If you think about it, Bulgaria also has this role, that it is always somehow on the border of one empire or another. And if you do not mind, I will start with such a question. How does the fact that Moldova is always somehow on the periphery of a large empire affect its inhabitants?

I know someone in England who claimed that Moldovans are cosmopolitans because they all have three different passports. This phenomenon existed because until 2014 we were traveling with visas in all the countries of the world. This made it difficult for us, of course. When I was in the UK in 2009, I had a scholarship that covered all my basic expenses. But on my first attempt to get a visa, I was turned down because I could not show a sufficient amount of money in my bank account.

Not only that. We are a small country and therefore we learn a lot of languages. For example, in my school I learned 4 languages. And there is one more thing – today I interviewed the mayor of Comrat, the capital of the autonomous region of Gagauzia, where a Turkish-speaking minority lives. He said in that interview that he was born in the center of Europe. And I thought it depends where you put the borders of Europe to determine who is at the center of Europe.

I was telling you that in my parents’ time it was difficult to find books in Romanian in Chisinau because the Soviet government did not want us to have a Romanian identity. In Chisinau there were only books written in Cyrillic. People went to Odessa or Chernivtsi to buy books in Romanian with Latin letters.

Some of my friends who studied in Moscow at that time say that life in Moscow was much freer than in Moldova, which was on the periphery of the Soviet Union. But there’s something else – a writer called Ion Druță started a campaign in the 1960s to return to the Latin alphabet. And life became difficult for him in Chisinau. But where do you think he emigrated to? Moscow.

Romanian-speaking Moldovans – that is, most Moldovans – are very similar to Romanians in Romania’s historic Moldovan region, centered on Iasi. The border between the two regions is somewhat conventional. But the experience of the Republic of Moldova is different because there was Russian occupation and the corresponding influence that comes with it. There are also Ukrainians, and there are relations between the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine.

Nowadays everything is very global and identities are multiple. I was talking to a Bosnian writer a while ago, Faruk Šehić, and I remember what identity was for him. He told me that other people force him to have only one identity – to say he is Serb, Bosnian or Croat. But he says one can be all three at the same time. He says – replace “or” with “and”. And then you don’t have to struggle with one identity.

I say about myself that I am Moldovan, Romanian, Londoner, European, a bit British – because I have a British passport and I lived in the UK for 12 years.

When I was in London, I visited a Turkish shop in East London, in the hipster Dalston area, and I was amazed to find there the cheese that my grandmother makes. That was a big surprise for me. I realized that on top of everything else, I chose you, I was Ottoman.

I would like to ask a question that may seem provocative, but I think that people who do not know Romania and the Republic of Moldova well are interested to know the answer. You said that you are both Moldovan and Romanian. What is common and what is different between Romanians and Moldovans?

In your stories in the book, you feel that there are links between the two spaces. There are people from the Republic of Moldova with relatives in Romania, with experience in Romania. The two countries speak the same language. But Romanians and Moldovans seem to differ in their attitude towards the so-called Slavs, because at state level it is claimed that Romanians are Latins and have nothing to do with Slavs, while in the Republic of Moldova there is an integrated Slavic influence?

Yes, but at the same time many of these Romanians you are talking about think about the Russian soul and the great Russian culture. I think Romanians speculate this myth of the great Russian culture.

I believe that all cultures are equally important. There are good writers and good artists in all cultures. The only difference is that good cultures are those that on the one hand extend their influence beyond their borders and on the other hand are able to integrate artists and creators from other cultures.

Some time ago I saw an exhibition in London about the Ukrainian avant-garde of the early 20th century. Many of these artists were considered Russians before the war that started in 2022. . And now Ukrainians say they are Ukrainians.

We don’t use the term “Slavs” in Moldova. Perhaps this expression is important for Bulgaria, which is a Slavic country. In the Republic of Moldova, we think of the Romanian and Russian period in the history of our country. In the USSR, all minorities became Russian-speaking and Russian was the official language. I mentioned the Gagauz. They are not ethnically Russian, but they became Russian-speaking. Many of them do not know their own language. Earlier generations had to learn Russian and that is why it is easier for them today to speak, for example, with Ukrainians who speak Russian and maybe with Bulgarians, as far as Bulgarian is close to Russian.

Prof. Penka Anghelova, Director of Elias Canetti International Society:

I liked what Paula said about the mix of different nationalities and identities. For example, I have been to conferences where guests from the former Yugoslav republics said they were Yugoslavs and could not define themselves nationally.

But the question of what Romanians and Moldovans think about “Slavs” in general is not asked correctly. Every person thinks something different and you cannot generalize what a people thinks about something.

Vladimir Mitev:

If there is time, I would like to ask one more question, because the Republic of Moldova is on its way to the European Union, and on October 20, 2024 there will be a referendum on the future membership in the European Union, as well as presidential elections. What do you think the results of the referendum and the presidential elections will be? How important will they be for your country?

Pro-European President Maia Sandu is likely to win in the second round of the elections. My expectations from the referendum are that a large number of Moldovans will say they want to join the European Union. But Russia’s propaganda is very strong. Yesterday, for example, police announced that 130 000 people were bribed by a Russian-linked oligarch to vote against EU membership in the referendum. We are in a hybrid war with Russia. 65% of Moldovans want to join the EU, but only 52% believe that Moldovans support EU membership. What Russian propaganda does is to tell us that we, the majority, are actually in the minority. There are many candidates for the presidential elections in Moldova who are, in one form or another, supported by Russia. But the main battle will be in the parliamentary elections in a year’s time, because Moldova is a parliamentary republic. So the struggle continues.

Prof. Anghelova:

Thank you. And good luck in the elections!

Paula Erizanu:

We can only hope.

Prof. Anghelova:

And to take action.

Paula Erizanu:

I agree. Thank you very much. Vlad, Victor, Prof. Angelova. Thank you all for being here.

Photo: Paula Erizanu at the literary festival of Ruse (source: Momchil Mihaylov Studio)

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