Eurasia Press & News
MOLDOVA
The “Moldova and Russia” Association for Friendship and Cooperation has sent an address to the deputies of the new Parliament of Moldova.
Chairman Yury Maximov told a news conference in Infotag today that the Association, which is marking its 15th anniversary this year, traditionally sends such messages to new parliaments upon their official recognition by the Constitutional Court.
“In them, we draw the new lawmakers’ attention to the problems the Moldovan society wants to be resolved, and request their assistance in further developing of friendship and cooperation between the Republic of Moldova and the Russian Federation”, Maximov said.
In the address, the Association highlighted the need for normalization and all-out development of Moldova’s cooperation with neighbor countries – Ukraine and Romania, and urged the new authorities, which are about to start forming new state structures, to avoid a mass-scale dismissing of leading skilled specialists from the incumbent structures only because they worked for the Communist government.
The address authors wrote that it is high time for Moldova to ensure – really, not solely declaratively – a status for Russian as a language for inter-nation communication, and to impart the functions of a state language to Russian as well. Moreover, the document calls for the functioning of 3 languages at localities densely inhabited by various ethnic minorities.
Yury Maximov drew the conference’s attention to the international status of the “Moldova and Russia” Association, and said that in the nearest future an analogous organization, “Russia and Moldova”, will appear in Russia. It will be headed by academician Konstantin Konstantinov, who stems from Moldova.
“We actively cooperate with France, in particular with the school located in the edifice where Antioh Cantemir once lived in. Regretfully, a recent opinion poll we organized at a number of local schools showed that many Chisinau schoolchildren have no idea who Cantemir was. Meanwhile, the outstanding man introduced into the Russian language about one hundred new words such citizen, citizenship and other”, Maximov said.
In his words, that prompted the Association to a thought to propose the Moldovan Government to organize a Year of the Cantemirs in Moldova to thus pay tribute to this outstanding family.
The Cantemir dynasty is an ancient Moldovan boyar kin, known from the early 16th century. Constantin Cantemir was a Moldovan king and the father to Dmitry.
Dmitry Cantemir (1673-1723) was a Moldovan king, too, and an outstanding Moldovan and later Russian (since 1711) statesman, scientist, philosopher, encyclopedist, and a writer. He is the author of a very essential historic, geographic and ethnographic monograph called “The Descriptions of Moldova”. He had a good command of 9 languages. His son, Antioch Cantemir (1708-1744), was a Russian duke, diplomat and poet. He was one of the founders of the Russian classicism in the genre of versed satire.
In 2009, the Association handed in its “Antioh Cantemir” golden and silver medals of honor to a group of Moldovan scientists, artists, writers, journalists for their valuable contribution to the development of friendship and cooperation between the peoples of mm and Russia.
