In this study, based on unpublished sources found in the National Archives of the Republic of Moldova, the author analyzes the linguistic dispute that erupted in the department of “Moldavian” language and literature of the Chişinău Pedagogical Institute in 1956. After a long period of real “linguicide” carried out by I.D. Ceban, director of the Institute of History, Language and Literature of the Moldavian Research Base of the USSR Academy of Sciences and his henchmen, the de-Stalinization and the Khrushchev Thaw allowed philologists, “slightly disguised Romaniaphiles”, to reject the theses about the “specificity of the Moldavian language” and affirm the linguistic unity of the people living on both banks of the Prut, although the river remained a political border. The considered linguistic contradictions between the two opposite camps of philologists from the department of “Moldavian” language and literature, as well as their consequences, are of great importance for explaining the phenomenon of preservation of national Romanian identity in the
